It Worked For Us

I just loved General Conference this past weekend. I know I mentioned it a little before, but I thought I would share our conference success story with you. We really wanted our girls to recognize the power that is in the words of the prophets. The things they share with us are from God, and that's a big deal. We hoped that the girls would feel God's love for them as they listened, and have a renewed desire to follow Christ and his teachings. And, this is the first time that our girls listened, without complaining, to every session of General Conference. Every word. Eight hours. It was incredible!

The first two sessions, I already told you about. (I think bribery is awesome, by the way.) On Sunday morning, we went to our local chapel and listened to the broadcast there, instead of at home on the computer. We gave the girls instructions for this session.

1. Make up at least one quiz question per speaker to ask the rest of the family.
2. You can make as many questions up as you want.
   
3. Your questions must not be too picky or detailed, but should be tricky enough to try to stump your sisters.
   
4. You get one piece of candy for each correct answer you get to others' questions.
   
5. You get two pieces of candy if you stump everyone else.
6. You can take notes so you remember things to try to answer a bigger amount of questions correctly.
7. Mom and Dad can throw out questions that are too picky (i.e. What color was the third speaker's tie?) and can also write questions to try to stump you.
   

This was the best thing we could have done! They took notes, had from ten to twenty questions, and remembered a lot of things that even my notes missed out on. They listened and understood more from this session than any other. In the end, they cared more about what questions they were able to get right than how much candy they got, which is great! They spoke of their favorite talks and things they had learned.

For the second Sunday session, we played Conference Bingo. This kept them quiet and listening, but I don't think they got as much out of it. They were mainly listening for words, rather than thinking about what the messages of the speakers were.

So, I've decided that next time, in October, we'll try the quiz game for more than one session, and as they get older, do only this. Hopefully we can lose the candy, too.

Lest you think that we had a delightful weekend with mounds of spiritual enlightenment, and now have perfect children, let me assure you, we do not. Monday morning Cinderella got up on the wrong side of the bed, and still hasn't recovered. She's grounded, and the twins are about a tantrum away from losing all of their possessions. So, it seems that despite two days of overwhelmingly feeling the Spirit and learning and knowing the importance of family and gospel living, we still have challenges. Someone should come up with a better way for us to learn and grow, I think. I'm a little tired of this parenting one.