Conference

As I look back over conference, I have a hard time thinking of what my favorite part was. I have grown to love General Conference and always enjoy sitting down to listen and be guided by leadership of the Church. I have always been amazed that almost every speaker has something to offer me, something to help me with the problems I am facing right now. However, there are some talks in which I stand back and ask myself, am I doing the things to become the person that they are talking about?

“Years ago, when my brothers and I were boys, our mother had radical cancer surgery. She came very close to death. Much of the tissue in her neck and shoulder had to be removed, and for a long time it was very painful for her to use her right arm.

One morning about a year after the surgery, my father took Mother to an appliance store and asked the manager to show her how to use a machine he had for ironing clothes. The machine was called an Ironrite. It was operated from a chair by pressing pedals with one's knees to lower a padded roller against a heated metal surface and turn the roller, feeding in shirts, pants, dresses, and other articles. You can see that this would make ironing (of which there was a great deal in our family of five boys) much easier, especially for a woman with limited use of her arm. Mother was shocked when Dad told the manager they would buy the machine and then paid cash for it. Despite my father's good income as a veterinarian, Mother's surgery and medications had left them in a difficult financial situation.

On the way home, my mother was upset: "How can we afford it? Where did the money come from? How will we get along now?" Finally Dad told her that he had gone without lunches for nearly a year to save enough money. "Now when you iron," he said, "you won't have to stop and go into the bedroom and cry until the pain in your arm stops." She didn't know he knew about that. I was not aware of my father's sacrifice and act of love for my mother at the time, but now that I know, I say to myself, "There is a man.’” (Let Us Be Men, Elder D. Todd Christofferson, Ensign, November 2006)

For some reason, this talk by Elder Christofferson stuck out to me the most. In a world where the definition of a man seems to be changing. No longer is a man the one who stands up and defends his family, his friends, or his beliefs. No longer is a man the one who goes out of his way to help another, lift others up, or be the one that goes out of his way to make some one smile. No longer is a man who admits he is wrong and does all he can to fix it.

The world sees a man as someone who has done the most, who has the most money, no matter what it takes. Has had the most sexy, drank the most beers, jumped off the highest cliff. A man to the world is a man who can put others down, and make others feel stupid, while they themselves look so great, even if they are wrong. Is that really a man? NO!

I enjoyed hearing this story by Elder Christofferson. It made me sit back and think, could I do that? Could I sacrifice something so my wife or family could have more? I enjoy food, and I actually get rather grumpy or don’t work as hard. I would hope and pray that I could make a sacrifice such as that so my family could have a little more.

This story also brought comfort to my soul in the sense that it made me realize that real men go out and lift others up. Real men still do exist in the world today, am I one of them? This talk seem to call me to higher ground and as Elder Christofferson said at the end of his talk, let us be men.

The above talk was not the only one I enjoyed, but just the one that I merely picked out and decided to discuss. All the talks at conference were wonderful, so I would highly advise everyone to take the time and reread or listen to the talks at conference. God speed.