Staying Home

Quite a few years ago, in the days of little Joshie and Sophie, I stepped out on our way to church to find that our water heater had flooded our garage.  With Kevin at work saving people’s lives, I knew the task was mine to save the garage. A neighbor soon knocked on our door offering his assistance.  He told me he was concerned when he still saw my minivan parked in the driveway at 9:15 am on a Sunday morning.  That taught me a valuable lesson: never skip church, because the neighbors ARE watching. (or at least have the sense to pull my car into the garage) Well, twice a year we get to legitimately skip going to church.  Our church holds a broadcasted General Conference, which translates, we get to stay in our pajamas all day long and watch church on tv!  Honestly, they are the best two Sundays of the entire year!!  Yes, the talks from our church leaders are awesome, but isn’t everything more awesome when you’re in your pajamas? They are always held the first weekends in April and October.  Last year, we were in Salt Lake City for both.  In April we had scrapped our Washington DC plans, and traveled to SLC instead to be with family after Kevin’s recent diagnosis.  In October we returned to bury him.  In my mind, General Conference has become “book ends” - marking the beginning and the ending and the incredible everything that happened in between.  

So what are we doing this Conference weekend?  We are staying home.  We’ll be watching conference and thinking about Kevin; but it will be extra nice to think about him because we will be wearing our pajamas.  And I’ll make sure I pull my minivan into the garage.