Twentyfour Hours with an Apostle

Every 18 months I receive a letter from The Office of the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (President Packer) and he informs us on our upcoming stake conferences. They give us 3 at a time and the letter gives the date (which is set in stone) and who will preside. It either says “Stake President” or “General Authority”.

I knew we were having a general authority for this conference and when I received the letter telling me who it was, I was so excited to learn that for the first time in 20 years we would have an apostle, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve visiting a stake conference here in Hyrum. The last apostle we had was Elder Boyd K. Packer. I was excited to open that letter when it finally came to tell me that our conference would be presided over by Elder Neil Andersen from the Twelve.

There was a tremendous amount of preparation that went into this conference including a 25 page stake book which told everything about the stake, planning for accommodations, meals, cleaning, set-up and take down, etc.

With an apostle coming, there was no way to fit everyone into the stake center so we decided to go to the Tabernacle in Logan. That in itself took some work as the stakes in Logan think they own the building and have first rights. The fact of the matter is, everyone has a stake center and they can hold their conferences in the centers just like we have usually done. Well the conference was held in Logan and with 8” of new white snow on the ground; we had a wonderful and memorable event.

I conducted the conference and when I stood up I told the children to remember the day, when it snowed so much and they came to see the apostle speak in a conference. Hopefully they all remember and will someday tell their children and grandchildren about our conference.