Once again, here are my notes and impressions of the LDS General Conference, this time from Apr. 2009:

• New apostle — Neil Lyndon Andersen
• The prophet may sing “El Rancho Grande” if you put him in a sombrero and sarape.
• The four most caring words: “We can’t afford it.”
• Be reverent!
• Virtue is not just for young women, but men too.
• Be acquainted with the voice of the Spirit, so you can recognize and understand it in the heat of the moment.
• Trials are invitations to grow, and those who accept trials as such can find peace in the turmoil.
• Learn from others, smart guy! Prophets and apostles are in touch, despite being old.
• Learn from the past too, lest you be doomed to repeat it.
• A loving God only makes sense if there is continuing revelation, and hell is not endless.
• Faith is like spiritual photosynthesis.
• Go to the temple and participate in all ordinances!
• Forgive to be forgiven.
• Add audible “amen” as a listener to a prayer.
• Learn how to pray from Christ’s prayers.
• Prayer doesn’t need to be long-winded. Six words can be as effective, or more so, than one thousand.
• Young people speak of the future because they have no past. Old people speak of the past because they have no future.
• Take care of your body.
• Do not immerse yourself so much in the technical that you fail to learn the practical.
• Help others through this time of economic hardship, especially with unemployment issues.
• Involve the whole family in home evening. The four-year-old can still share a Primary lesson.
• Don’t do Church work on your employer’s time.
• Elder Uchtdorf pokes fun at his own propensity to tell aviation stories.
• A malfunctioning light bulb led to the crash of a plane.
• The tendency to focus on the insignificant instead of the profound ends in tragedy.
• Don’t text while driving!
• Our weakness is failing to align our actions with our conscience.
• We’re at spiritual war! Let us be not just spiritual soldiers, but spiritual medics as well.
• Prophetic counsel: take notes!
• Be always ready to give a reason for the hope within you.
• Three not-new suggestions for safety:

1. Study diligently
2. Pray fervently
3. Live righteously

• Prayer is the passport to peace.
• Don’t eat egg salad sandwiches after leaving them out in the sun.
• Answer the call to serve, even if it’s just giving a blessing to a drummer with food poisoning.
• Live worthy every minute.
• Get on with life! Adapt to change!
• Next time you want to groan, laugh instead! Ha ha ha!
• The Spirit had to withdraw from Christ on the cross so He could understand the hopeless despair of those who have committed grievous sins.
• Don’t be an unresponsive onlooker on the road to Golgotha.
• Perseverance with faith in hard times will lead to peace.
• If you ever find a mother with four children journeying in bare feet and tattered clothes across a war-torn country, for pete’s sake help her out, lest she be forced to bury all four of her children with a spoon, and later her bare hands in the snow!
• The future is as bright as your faith.
• Church members’ willingness to sacrifice comes from faith, church leader instruction, and commitment to covenants.
• Selfishness and entitlement (the feeling of getting something for nothing because one “deserves” it) are behind the global economic meltdown.
• Going to church is better if you’re active, not passive, while there.
• Regular temple-going is the way to truly take Christ’s name upon us.
• You’re never lost when you can see the temple.
• Make your home as holy as the temple.
• Our Father will respect our freedom to shoes, er, choose.
• GPS systems are awesome, except when they lose the satellite signal in underground parking garages.
• Our personal GPS (conscience) will lose its connection with the divine if buried under the concrete parking garage of sin.
• When you lose sight of the camp, let the old experienced horse lead the way.
• Analogy: full-time missionaries = search and rescue team. Members = shepherds. Who has a better chance of bringing in the sheep?
• Share your musical talents with others! That means go to choir, kid!
• Word of caution: careful on the Internet! There’s a whole lotta crap on there! Avoid it at all costs, especially the porn!
• Remember President Monson and all general authorities in your prayers!

And perhaps most importantly:

• If you’re staying at your parents’ house from Saturday night to Sunday morning, make sure you’ve set your clock for Daylight Savings Time back in your childhood bedroom, lest you believe it’s 9:30 when you go upstairs, only to find out that conference has been going for a full half hour. I heard Pres. Uchtdorf’s talk had to do with Palm Sunday, but that’s about all I got.

This was the first April conference since I moved down to Provo where I haven’t been in the choir at one session. While that means I got to hear the whole thing instead of being stuck on a bus for most of a session, it was still kind of sad. I guess I can’t be there all the time, though, not unless I join the Tab choir. Maybe I’ll do that someday. I’ll be right up there with Mark Pearce and Brad Omer! On a related choir note, the Saturday Afternoon choir was a combined Institute choir from Salt Lake County, and it was conducted by a guy in my home stake, who was in charge of the tenors when we put on From Cumorah’s Hill when I was in seventh grade (and was a tenor). Kind of random.

In any case, enjoy the conference proceedings, and remember to consider the lilies in the field. How they grow? How they grow.