Editor's Note

by Stephanie Huang Porter

I love food. I love preparing it. I love the order in creating meals. I like chopping vegetables, I like the aromas, the vibrant colors. I experience my “quiet zen” time when I create a meal. Granted, this often happens with my girls running around, giggling, or screaming at each other, but in the midst of nourishing myself through this methodical process, I find I am then able to provide something nourishing for my family. I believe we each need to find something that centers us, calms us and allows us to empty our minds for a moment.

Likewise, I love General Conference. I love how the words spoken by our leaders fill us with hope, with a desire to change, with courage, and with wisdom.

Whenever I have the chance to listen to our leaders I feel grateful, grateful that we have a loving Father in Heaven who is specifically tuned in to exactly what we need to hear.

When President Dieter F. Uchtdorf (do you like saying his name as much as I do?) said that it is not enough to know that the seed is good, but that we must nourish it with great care to partake of the blessings, I looked at it through my parenting lens. Our children come to us incredibly good, smart, loving... but knowing this is not enough - we have so much to do as parents to help that seed along. Much of that work is within ourselves. We must change our behaviors, actions, and thoughts to be worthy of guiding the souls in our home. I have never felt more unworthy, than as a mother. I have realized how much more my children teach me, and what a great responsibility the Lord has placed in my hands.

I giggled at the advice given by Elder Boyd K. Packer, to our new apostle Elder Neil L. Anderson, as Packer said, “I am a nobody, and Brother Andersen, you are a nobody too. If you ever forget it, the Lord will remind you of it instantly, and it won’t be pleasant.” What a great reminder/warning for all of us.

I am always eager to hear what Elder Dallin H. Oaks has to say. I am grateful that he reminded us about sacrifice. That the gap is widening between those that are willing to sacrifice and those that are not. I so admire parents who understand that having children is a choice to sacrifice. I hope my children, and my husband know that they come first, that no amount of self-fulfillment, or pursuits of pleasure will ever come before them.

I nodded when Elder David A. Bednar reminded us that we “are never lost when you see the temple”. I want to follow Elder Gary E. Stevenson when he asked us to look at our homes through spiritual eyes, and maybe do a little remodeling to align our homes more closely to our Holy Temples.

Elder Holland gave one of my favorite talks of conference, speaking directly to each of us, reminding us that we are never left alone, even when we feel we are. Holland said, “Brothers and sisters, one of the great consolations of this Easter season is that because Jesus walked such a long, lonely path utterly alone, we do not have to do so...My other plea at Easter time is that these scenes of Christ’s lonely sacrifice, laced with moments of denial and abandonment and, at least once, outright betrayal, must never be reenacted by us. He has walked alone once...may we declare ourselves to be more fully disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, not in word only and not only in the flush of comfortable times but in deed and in courage and in faith, including when the path is lonely and when our cross is difficult to bear.”

This Easter season, with the beginning of spring, I am grateful for the messages of renewal. I am grateful that through Christ’s atonement, we each have an opportunity to change, bit-by-bit. It doesn’t matter that we’re not there yet, what matters are all the little, almost imperceptible moments, where we are steadily moving forward.