Today in general conference we got to sustain Pres. Monson, his counselors, and other general authorities in a solemn assembly. That was one of those experiences you don't get to have too often. This evening, when I went over to have "Girls Night Out" with Lindy and the girls, I asked them what their favorite part of conference was. Riley said, "The standing up and raising hands part." I think they thought that was the best because they were actually participating in the conference. I asked them if they heard about the new apostle (Elder Christofferson). They said they had. Then Camden asked, "Is he an old man?" My first response was "no, he's not an old man" (because he is near my age). But then remembering that I'm pretty old, I said, "Well, he's about the same as as Grampa and I are." Then Camden asked, "Is he 59?" She's quick. I even have to stop and try to remember my current age. I told her that actually, he's a few years older, 62 or 63 (he was a senior and a studentbody officer at BYU when I was a freshman). Another new general authority is Larry (Lawrence) Corbridge, who is my same age and grew up in the Oak Hills First Ward with me. He was called to the first quorum of the seventy.
While "The Boys" all went to general priesthood meeting, I went over to Lindy's for "Girls Night Out." We decided not to go out some place to eat since it's pretty wild out there on the Saturday night of priesthood session--lots of women and girls having their own Girls Night Out. I remember back in the day when Lindy, Sarah and Tiff were young we always had a Girls Night Out before that became the popular thing to do. There weren't so many people out having fun as there are now. (When Lindy and Sarah got to be teenagers and stopped wanting to go out for our Girls Night with Tiff and me, I felt bad. But that only lasted for a few years. As they got older, they started liking Girls Night Out again. It's a fun time to be together. We miss having Sarah and Eliza and Tiff with us, but we know they're thinking about us and we're thinking about them.) So for tonight, Lindy ordered a marguarita pizza from Pizza Factory, and I picked it up on my way over to their house. Pizza Factory was crazy when I went in there--tons of people waiting to be seated. I heard someone ask how long of a wait and they were told 35-40 minutes. I was glad that I had a pick-up order, which I was able to get quickly, and that we had decided to eat "in" at the Barretts. We had a lot of fun. The girls didn't know quite what to think about that pizza loaded with so many veggies. (I think they're getting veggied out.) They were kind of like, "Even our pizza is loaded with veggies." So they each took their un-favorite veggies off their piece of pizza and ate it. After pizza we had orange floats and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies that Lindy had made. YUM! Then we had some fun before I went home to fix orange floats for Grampa and Richard.
That was a great conference session today. I especially liked Elder Rasband's talk about how our life experiences are building blocks for our testimonies. "They shall learn in their own experience who He is." And Elder Wirthlin's talk about how we should keep going even if we're tired. "The Lord giveth power to the faint." I also really liked Elder Carlos H. Amado's talk about Service. "Through serving our fellowmen we come to know the Lord."