This has been a good week. We had stake conference on Saturday and Sunday. It was a very different conference. Elder Olson of the Seventy was our General Authority. In both the Saturday evening session and the general session on Sunday Elder Olson would talk or ask a member of the stake presidency to speak on a particular subject. Several people were called from the audience to speak in both meetings. They would share their insights on an assigned topic or experience in their lives. Our stake president sent out an e mail earlier in the week giving us some suggestions of things we should read and asked those who received the e mail to be prepared to speak without notes if called. Sister Castleton was called on Sunday to share her testimony about our work. Her observation other than being shocked was that she appreciated the opportunity because it gave her an insight into how strong her testimony really is.
 Elder Olson spoke several times about being led or prompted by the Spirit. Our Stake Priesthood leadership meeting Sunday morning was led by the spirit as was the Saturday night meeting.The Sunday session was held in three buildings to try to make sure everyone was comfortably seated and a great effort was put forth to get people to attend. At the beginning of the morning session the Primary children were asked to sing "I Am A Child of God." in each building. The stake Primary president was in one of other buildings. When Pres. Davis announced the song the children would sing he said that following the singing our stake Primary president should make her way to the stake center while he was speaking because she would be the speaker following his remarks. That is the way that the meetings proceeded. There was a wonderful spirit and some sweaty palms along the way.
Following the conference we had a nice visit with one of our home teaching families. We tried to visit another family who were not home but as we started toward home, one of our home teaching sisters who is hard to contact was sitting outside of her work taking a break. We were able to stop and visit with her and leave a message.
The week brought a variety of visits and lessons. We love sharing messages with the families who invite us to dinner. We feel good about sharing messages of appreciation and love with these families. We have to be a little flexible because each family has different make ups and we have to adjust our message accordingly.
Our former Stake President Clawson passed away this week. He called Elder Castleton to be bishop in the 12th ward and then we served with him as he served as a counselor to Pres. Featherstone at the Logan Temple presidency. He was a good man and we will miss him.
We had one great opportunity during the week to teach family history to an investigator who is scheduled to be baptized next week. Earlier that day we had a meeting with a family to help them learn more about New Family Search. Then the next evening we participated with a ward family history evening where the high priest group invited the ward to bring their computers and meet together and do some family history work and ask questions. Family history has become an important part of our work and we enjoy seeing people get excited about finding family names so they can do the ordinance work for them.