Understanding words

So every six months we listen to General Conference. It's when the leaders of our church give us inspired guidance and counsel to live richer, fuller lives that bring us closer to god and eternal happiness. I love this meeting, it's my favorite thing ever. I always feel refreshed, reassured, humbled, and thankful after listening to it.
Listening to conference with kids is challenging. It's four hours a day for both a Saturday and a Sunday. Granted there is a two hour break in between those four hours, but it's a lot of listening, and small kids have problems holding still and listening.
Crystal knows the purpose and idea of conference but in the past we have always distracted her with crafts, crayons, toys, etc, and she wasn't really trying to listen at all. This time as a six year old, I felt that she was old enough to at least give it a try. She has learned to read and write in the past year so I gave her a pen and piece of notebook paper and to write down anything she heard that she liked or understood, and that if she did, I would buy her a conference notebook of her very own just like mommy's.
She was really excited about it until the first speaker, President Monson, started speaking. The general authorities of the church use very educated, elaborate and descriptive words when they speak...which get the point across wonderfully, but are very hard for a 6 year old to comprehend.
She got frustrated and started crying. I asked her what was wrong and she told me she couldn't understand a dang thing that was being said and she didn't know how she was going to write anything down.
At first I felt a little frustrated too. Not at her, but at myself and the situation. I wanted to do something that would help her listen and enjoy conference, and instead she was frustrated and upset. I couldn't help but wonder if I was pushing her too hard. The last thing I wanted to do was make conference a bad experience for her. After I had a minute to think about it I told her that she shouldn't try to understand all the hard words, and to just relax, and listen and if she heard just one thing, even if it was a small thing and understood it, to write that thing down and not worry about the rest....and to make it a game. To see how many things she could understand in every talk. I told her that whatever she understood from anything said were the words that Heavenly Father wanted her to know, and that's all that mattered. I told her not to get frustrated because if a talk finished and she didn't understand any of it, I would pause it and tell her a little bit about what the speaker said in words she could understand.
So we tried again. By now Pres. Monson had finished speaking and we were on to the next speaker. The speaker, (Elder Packer) said the words "Familes can be forever" in his talk, and she brightened up, because that was something she understood. So she wrote it down. After she got the hang of it, she wrote down anything she understood for the rest of the session. Then was the two hour break and I told her how proud I was of her. I had her show the paper to me to see what she understood, and it brought tears to my eyes. Here is what my darling 6 year old little girl got out of the first half of the first session:


Families can be forever
Parents need to help kids understand
Family home evening is important
Family prayer is important
We love the gospel of Jesus Christ
There is nothing like this Church in all of the world
The Savior teaches
We can enjoy the gift of the Holy Ghost
Heavenly father loves all of us.
Jesus sacrificed for us.
Jesus's blood was spilt
Jesus wants us to love one another
Jesus wants us to serve one another
Faith in Christ
We need the Gospel of Jesus
The Holy Spirit will be your teacher
The missionaries have a lot of faith
Thank you for the missionaries
I listen to the words of my father
Pray always

I was SO impressed, and really proud of her.
By the end of the second half of the first session, she fell asleep. The next day she did a good job for a while, and ended up getting distracted by her brother who was playing with Scott's ipad. That's okay though because for a beginner she did great. It took me years to try and sit down and listen to General Conference as a kid. She's way ahead of where I was.
This Monday we used the above list as discussion topics for family night. We got through the first five, but will continue to work on it every week until we've talked about all the topics on her list and what they mean.
I'm so thankful for the things my family and I can learn from listening to General Conference. It really does make our lives richer, fuller and happier.