come listen to a prophet's voice

So General Conference is in a week, and can I tell you how excited I am? How refreshed and encouraged I feel after each General Conference weekend? For me, General Conference is a festive family-centered mini-retreat. Food is important to our tradition. We always have special breakfasts, like cinnamon French toast and strawberries or German pancakes. Fruit and fruit dip. You get the idea.

Then begins the actual watching of Conference. I must admit, the last few years rated exceptionally low in the "what I got out of conference" category. I had to rely on my trusty Ensign to show up a month later so I could get the full impact of the talks. However, last Conference, Chris and I had a wonderful time relaxing and listening to the talks with minimal interruptions.

What has changed? Well, for one, our girls are getting older. They tend to entertain themselves better. But the other essential factor was that I prepared them for Conference. We read this fabulous article in The Friend magazine about a family who made a conference reverence tent. We followed their lead by learning about King Benjamin in Family Home Evening and then setting up a tent on Conference weekend. They LOVED it! Even Clara snuggled in quietly just to be with her older sisters. {I just found this King Benjamin-themed FHE lesson which I will borrow from this time around.}

My second big hit last time was a Conference bingo {don't worry, does not include the calling out of "bingo!"}. You can find these in conference packets or personalize it for your children, which I did. Ours included pictures of the Savior, Thomas S. Monson, the temple, a choir singing, and a girl praying. Then we played "reverse bingo": I put very small goodies on each picture and when anything was mentioned or done {choir, prayer, the Prophet talking, the Savior's name, the temple or an actual image on the screen} they got to eat a goodie. It was entirely up to them to listen and they did GREAT. They were so excited that they'd yell out, "It's the Prophet!" or "She's talking about Jesus!" This way they were entirely aware of the general flow of conference {pray, sing, prophet recognition}.

As the girls waited to get a bingo treat, they worked on a fun Conference packet, coloring & cutting. You can Google "general conference packet" and up will pop a list of fun, homemade activities. This year I've selected my favorite age-appropriate activities & put them into colored folders for a customized packet {thanks Amber for the idea!}. Of course you can always rely on The Friend magazine, as my dad did, as a resource to make a fun little conference packet {they have activities galore to print}.

My favorite links this time:
SugarDoodle: big list of conference-related activities
2009 List of GC packets
And, my FAVORITE packet, even though it's for fall 2008

As the girls get older they'll be able to internalize the messages more, but for now my primary goal is to get them excited for the cultural & spiritual traditions of Conference. What are some of your General Conference traditions? I'd love to hear!