For Mothers of Young Children
How General Conference Taught Me to Hear the Voice of the Lord—Even over My Child’s Playful Screaming
Watching conference with my little girl was a bit disorganized, but I was able to better understand how to feel the Spirit during the chaos.
Photograph posed by models
My sweet little girl is a year and a half, which makes sitting still through anything a challenge—but especially 10 hours of general conference. I realized within the first hour of the Saturday morning session that, no matter how many activities we had for her, we weren’t going to be able to entertain her enough to get her to sit through even one full session of conference.
She quickly became bored with the coloring activity we had for her and began running as fast as she could across our living room. As she was sprinting back and forth across our living room, she thought it would be hilarious to randomly scream at the top of her little lungs. This made it a little hard to hear what the speaker was saying. (We ended up putting the subtitles on, which helped.)
While I was sitting and thinking about how to help her be reverent during conference (while she was running and screaming), I had the thought to just let her play. “But how will she be able to feel the Spirit?” I wondered. “And how will my husband and I be able to concentrate on the messages we need to hear?” The Spirit whispered to me that, even when she runs across the room screaming, she doesn’t have the ability to offend the Spirit as an 18-month-old.
Matthew 19:14 popped into my head, which says, “But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
In that moment, I had the impression that these days won’t last forever—that I should enjoy watching her grow and appreciate the little girl she is because she will never be this little again. I did my best to listen to the messages while striving to meet the needs of my daughter. I also made a personal commitment to study the talks in greater detail when they became available online. Doing these things helped me to be patient with my daughter and to create a home where the Spirit could be present.
At the end of the Sunday morning session, the closing hymn started to play, and she looked at me and said, “Sing?”
I replied, “Yes, you can sing.” She climbed up on my lap and did her very best to copy the words of the song and sing along with the choir.
At the end of the song, she looked at me and asked, “Prayers?”
I said, “Yep, it’s time for prayers.” And she immediately folded her arms and listened while the prayer was said.
At the end of the prayer, she shouted, “Amen!” with excitement I wish I could have at the end of every prayer.
This conference, I definitely didn’t hear every talk. But I felt the Lord’s love and His Spirit in our home as my husband and I made conference a priority for our family. Our little girl would learn from our example, even if a lot of the time she was rather distracting while she ran around the living room.
From an outside view, our little family watching conference must’ve looked chaotic, to say the least. But the Spirit was present in our home during conference because my sweet little girl reminded me of the love that our Savior has for His children.
As I found myself wondering if she was getting anything from general conference, I remembered the impression I had that having the Spirit in my home would teach her and comfort her, even if she didn’t hear what the speakers said. The Lord will recognize our efforts and make up the difference for what we cannot do on our own. As we make listening to general conference and having the Spirit in our home a priority, our family will be able to better hear and recognize the voice of the Lord.