General Conference

Each year I find something in Conference that makes me come away with a stronger testimony of my Heavenly Father and my Savior, Jesus Christ. This year happened to be the 75th anniversary of the Church Welfare Program. I had NO idea!! I absolutely love the Welfare Program and everything that it has to offer. It truly is the Lord's way of giving. I am sure that I have already blogged about this but I felt like I needed to focus on self-reliance in Relief Society this semester. I wasn't really sure if it was my personal desire to focus on this or if it was a prompting from the Lord. So I decided I would hold off on preparing my lesson until I was sure that it was the right topic. I debated over Forgiveness, The Second Coming, I think I was even going to talk about marriage... I attended a Stake Leadership Training the month before my lesson and our Relief Society Presidency talked about Self-Reliance and how we should learn to live provident lives and prepare ourselves. I knew then that this was the topic that the Lord did want me to discuss with my Sisters. It was amazing how I decided to teach on the Good Samaritan was the exact same story shared by our Stake President. I found a video that President Monson had narrated that focused on the story of the Good Samaritan in light of being self-reliant and extending service to others. I knew again that I was on the correct path in preparing for this lesson. The Sunday came for me to talk about self-reliance, the lesson was taught and I feel that the basic principles of self-reliance were covered and discussed.

This General Conference many of the leaders directed their messages toward welfare and self-reliance. Again, I knew that I was inspired in some way to prepare the sisters and myself to have a basic knowledge of this principle. I know that this topic was not an idea that came into my mind by mere coincidence. Self-Reliance was a topic spoken of my General Authorities just this weekend! Though we may not know exactly why we are led in a certain path we can always tell when our path is approved by the Lord. If I gained anything from this interesting set of intertwining reaffirmations it was that God lives. He does hear and answer our prayers and He is greatly aware of our current stations in life. He knew I needed to choose a topic for my lesson that was necessary for the sisters in my ward and he gave me the hope to pursue a path that would prove successful. And I have been able to recognize his Hand in my life as I have constantly sought out his help and Divine Assistance.

I know that God lives and I have learned how to recognize when my chosen path is in accordance with God's will. Things will fit together and manifestations of approval will appear if we know what to look for. General Conference was great and I learned a lot about how I need to improve and what I need to be prepared for. Text comes out on Thursday so I'll be reading it!!!