I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

So for those of you who maybe aren't as familiar with the practices of the LDS church, every 6 months the General Authorities of our Church hold a General Conference broadcast from Salt Lake City, where they give talks and share doctrines and insights according to the promptings of the Spirit. 

This is seriously one of my favorites times of the year and I love the chance to be able to hear the word of God from the mouth of His prophets. For the first time in my life I watched both Saturday morning and afternoon sessions on my own, which was a very different experience from watching with my crazy, chaotic family. Then today I got to watch both sessions today with my wonderful roommates and friends, which is such a great bonding experience for us. 

Really I have two purposes here. First, I want to bear my testimony that I KNOW that God lives and that he loves us and that Jesus Christ was sent to the Earth to Atone for our sins, and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the true and restored Church on the earth today. 

Second, I want to share some of my favorite moments from conference. There were a lot of amazing things said and I have 23 pages of notes to prove it, but here are some of the things that stand out most to me today looking back at the past two days of spiritual uplifting:

Every person who spoke bore a very strong and poignant testimony that they KNOW that Christ lives and that this they belong to the true Church. 

It is very important for us to live true to the faith, to defend it and stand by it, even if we are standing alone. 

Christ's love is so amazing and so powerful, and there is nothing like it on this Earth, but if we strive to do our best we can partake of it and we also have the opportunity to share the love of Christ with others through service. 

There are so many opportunities waiting around us for service. We are surrounded by those who need our attention, our comfort, our support and our kindness. By reaching out to help them we are showing our love for them and for our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. 

Our foundations should be on the Rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ The Lord.

We need to lay up our treasures in HEAVEN and not focus so much on worldly goods and belongings. 

The keys to basically everything, and the priorities that we should have in our life are DAILY prayer, DAILY scripture study, WEEKLY church attendance and WEEKLY FHE. 

Family, family, family. FAMILY is SO SO SO important. Basically everything hinges on having strong family relations and doing our best to keep family ties, both with living relative and ancestors who have passed beyond the veil. Seriously if there is ONE theme I would tell you that I heard this time it is the FAMILY IS THE KEY to everything. EVERYTHING. And that if we have a good relationship with Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, we can have even stronger families. 

Also, the BOOK OF MORMON is so INCREDIBLY powerful. For so many reasons. It has the power to PROTECT families, to protect us from the whirlwinds of life and to bring us closer to Christ. 

We cannot afford to stray from the path of righteousness. We need to be firm in the faith and keep on the path to the Kingdom of God. 

LOVE GOD and LOVE YOUR NEIGHBORS. Seriously, just LOVE EVERYONE. Because we are ALL children of God and we all came to this Earth to be tried and tested so that we can return to Him. 

Lastly, I just want to share something that my friend said while we were watching the final session of Conference this afternoon: "The story of Christ's Ressurection is the MOST IMPORTANT story in the HISTORY of the UNIVERSE!" -Jake Rolfson

This is true. It just is. 

I have had so many spiritual experiences this weekend listening to the word of God as it was preached by living prophets and apostles of Christ. They know it is true. And so do I. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is 100% true. I have no doubt in my mind about it. I love the Church, so so so much. 

There are so many more quotes and lessons that I want to share, and I gladly will with anyone who wants to hear. But know that I have a testimony and I KNOW that the Church is true. We live in a very special time on this Earth where there are so many terrible things happening in the world. But these terrible things are nothing in comparison to the AMAZING BLESSINGS of the restored Gospel. 

IT IS TRUE. 

I know it. I live it. I LOVE IT!