Conference

This weekend has been fantastic and so fulfilling!

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The LDS General Conference has given me a great opportunity of self-reflection in how I can improve in my life. I have loved so many talks, as they strike personal chords as I am about to form my own family now in less than a week. I wanted to blog about how much of a blessing digital culture and technology have been in my efforts to view this Conference.

Yesterday was great. This morning was... stressful. 10 minutes before the morning session was supposed to begin, the TV wasn't working. So we whipped out our laptops to watch the live feed... only to find that the landlord's internet router was turned off, for some reason, and we had no access to it. After desperately trying to call her, we gave up and then proceeded to watch the morning session on my little iPhone screen. I think I sucked up a lot of cellular data, but it was worth it. I began to think of what a great blessing it was that we even HAD all of these many options in viewing it. I know this isn't as extreme as maybe back in our parents' childhood years, but I remember being a child and sitting on the couch and only being able to listen to the conference feed from the computer, with no visual. Now, there are so many different avenues we can take in order to watch and listen to the words of the prophet, apostles, and other church leaders.

On my mission last year, Elder Oaks and President Rasband came to visit and address us. In that zone conference, Elder Oaks shared that President Packer had convinced the quorum of the twelve apostles and they should all be more involved in social media, because it was a great way to stay in touch with their families and it would also become a great way to preach and share gospel principles and values. We were then encouraged to spend a significant amount of time that week on the computer to familiarize ourselves with http://mormon.org.

Even my cousin, who is in the engineering program at BYU has shared how advanced the teleprompter in the Conference Center is and that its technology is marveled by other organizations within the nation.

Today Elder Cook made a comment in his talk about not letting ourselves become addicted to things such as social media, where it obstructs our agency. The Church sets a wonderful example in using digital culture in a healthy way.

I am so grateful for the messages I have been blessed to hear this weekend, thanks to the technology created. I am equally excited to see what strides the Church will make in implementing technology and social media more and more in the future.