I love General Conference!

I am so grateful for General Conference! I feel like I get so much out of it. When I pray and really prepare myself, I feel like all the talks are for me or that I am able to get something out of it to better myself. I love watching general conference, but my favorite part is rereading them. It's amazing what you miss the first time around, especially when you have a child. And I can't even imagine what that situation is like with more than one! For probably many reasons Conference last fall, to me, seemed to be a lot about death. I thought of a lot of people when listening to the conference last fall. And a lot of them have blogs listed on my side bar.
As most of my family and friends know I am into stocking reading other people's blogs. I don't really know them, but if I saw them on the street I would probably go right up to them and talk with them like we are old friends without even thinking about it. (Though I was in the same zumba class as Ashley Sullenger and really just felt like I was seeing a celebrity and wasn't able to say a word). All these blogs that I follow are of families who have had a really hard trial of losing a loved one. My blog following started when I would get an e-mail from the school informing us that a class mate or professor had passed away. Most of the time they wouldn't give any more information than that. It would really bug me. And I can't just make up some story in my mind about who they were or what happened. Were they engaged or newly married like me? Did they have children? Did they have cancer and know they were going to die? I am horrible with make believe or using my imagination. I do not like sci-fi or fiction books. I feel like I am wasting my time.  After getting one of these e-mails I would always try and google this person to see if I could figure out more about who they were and what happened. That's when I learned about Ashley Sullenger. She was a young wife just like me, a mother to a little blonde hair, blue eyed girl just like me and attended BYU-I just like me. Except she lost her little girl to a drowning accident when her daughter was only 18 months old. I found that she had a blog where she would write about updates on how her little girl was doing and then when she passed on she wrote about how they were dealing with their loss. I would cry every time I would read her blog. If McKay comes home and can tell I have been crying, he doesn't even ask. He just says, "are you reading blogs!" But I just can't understand how a mother could lose a child or my husband in any sense of that word. She talks a lot about the gospel and how even though this trial of hers feels unbearable at times it's the gospel and the knowledge of her savoir that helps her get through it. I love General Conference for that reason. I love that we have apostles and prophets called of God and inspired by God to guide the church!
A few months after they lost their little girl they found out they were expecting and were due the exact same day as we were expecting Brinlee. It was fun to read her blog to see how she was feeling and doing with her pregnancy knowing that she was at the same point that I was.
The sullengers have been an amazing example of how to grow and become better people through a difficult trial. Her posts are always so uplifting and honest. I know that there have been people, more than she or anyone will ever know, that have been introduced and have accepted the gospel because she was willing to share with the world the heartache they are going through. I hope that one day I can be that awesome! Soon after being a regular visitor on her blog I realized that there were many families that had blogs where they would pour out there heart about a similar situation. So now I follow many blogs. I have friends who have tried reading through my list of blogs I follow and don't understand how I can read this stuff. And I totally understand why. But for me, I feel like I have become a much better person for it. I have gained a little bit of a different perspective on my life, especially as a wife and mother. I know I was supposed to live at this day and age. I am so grateful for technology and for people being willing to share their life and how they deal with struggles. So if your like me and like to stock read about other people's lives, a list of some of the ones I follow are under my blog list titled Inspirational. But not all of them are of families blogging about their trials.