For as long as either of us remember, the first weekends of April and October have been special. Our church's General Conference is held that weekend and church members and friends gather in person and virtually from all over the world. We love hearing the teachings of our leaders, listening to the beautiful music, learning the latest announcements, and feeling connected with members from across the world. In all those years we have only been in the room where it happens (Tabernacle/Conference Center) a couple times, but we have spent many wonderful hours watching from various locations across the United States.
None of those locations have ever been as distant or time-zone-unfriendly as this conference! The sessions that start in Utah at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, translate here to midnight and 4 a.m. on Sunday and Monday in Singapore. Even with our strong General Conference zeal, we didn't try to catch them live. However we have now been able to view all of them over the subsequent days. Every session was so outstanding and inspiring!
In other news this week we have been unexpectedly hosting our first house guests: a companionship of wonderful sister missionaries. They have been staying in our guest room for a couple nights and will be here one or two more. It has been nice having them join us for dinner, a session of General Conference, and some commuting to and from our office. We are grateful for their bright spirits and the light they carry! We hope that we'll have other great house guests (including some of you!) during our time here.
Finally this week I leave you with a poem. In soliciting ideas for our blog from our children, our son (likely jokingly) said that we should compose a poem for the occasion. I don't think I have written a poem since 8th grade English and am very lacking in self-confidence in my ability. I will ponder about doing so before the end of our mission, but in the meantime I have asked ChatGPT to take a crack at it. So without any of my editorialization, I will let you draw your own conclusions on whether the job of poet is doomed in our society...
Photos:
1: General Conference viewing at home
2: After watching some Saturday highlights on Sunday, the Young Adults found an excuse to eat!
3-6: Saturday trip to Sentosa, a resort island just off the main island of Singapore. It was a beautiful day.
7-10: Dinner and (oh so much) dress shopping in Little India. These pictures are just a fraction of a fraction of what they have there.
11: We just finished Week 4 of our Emotional Resilience class. This is a slide that Vivian put together and used there and in some of her counseling sessions.
12: Waiting in a hospital lobby (not for Vivian!)
13: The city is excited - we see these posters everywhere!
14: Building up some pictures in our place, starting with Grandparents and Grandchildren...no offense to parents and children! :)
15: One of those darling grandchildren on FaceTime with us.
16: We are so relieved to have our property management company doing a nice job on our house back home. One less thing to worry about!
Glad it is going so well for you! I miss you both. Shannon and Rocky
(not jokingly) :)
Sean & Vivian,
Your situation with time zone differences reminds me of when Les & I lived in Australia. We joined in 1978 and would only get the Sunday afternoon session which we would listen to over the radio. We would have to wait till the magazine came in to find our what the talks were about and read them to absorb them. Today they record them and show them a week later so the conference will be this Saturday and Sunday. My how times and technology changed.
Les & Claire
Wow, the poems are quite good. :-)
Haha the poem is awesome!