If only I had had my camera!!!!

This weekend was Stake Conference.

In case you don't speak LDS, a Stake is a geographical division of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints similar to a Parish in the Catholic Church. Wherever you are in the world, you are assigned to a Ward or Branch in a Stake based on your address. If you live between Pascagoula MS and the Alabama/Florida line, south of Monroeville Al and Lucedale MS, you are in the Mobile Alabama Stake.

Stake Conference is a Saturday night/Sunday morning meeting held twice a year where all the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Mobile Alabama Stake get together for training and instruction at the Stake Center in Mobile Alabama.

The speakers are always good, but to be honest, I think the best speakers are always on Saturday night when only the adults meet from 6 pm to 8 pm. Lately, Jason and I have taken turns going to Stake Conference meetings because Owen is better at home during these longer Church meetings.

The theme for last night's meeting was certainly missionary work. There were 4 awesome talks on preparing your missionary and what returned missionaries learned/wished they had learned before they left. I plan to summaries and report on those talks too. There were 3 other talks, a great one by our Stake President (no surprise, he is amazing), a talk on Relief Society (the women's group - good but I will admit I was making a grocery list during her talk, sorry, right now my heart is in Primary) and another talk by the new Stake Young Women's President on teenagers.

Rhonda is her name. She and her husband are two of my favorite people. Rhonda has no children but is a teacher/administrator so by proxy, she has lots and lots of children.

She gave us three pieces of wisdom concerning teenagers:

1) Teenagers don't care anything about what you say or do until they believe that you care about them.

2) Teenagers are just little kids in big bodies.

3) Teenagers secretly love boundaries.

She went on to expound on each of her points.

1) She recommends you spend a lot of time listening to teenagers so you can get to know them. That is the best way to let them know you care about them. Listen more than you talk.

2) Teenagers think they are grown up but they aren't, don't forget this and allow them to make important adult choices they aren't ready for. Also, don't be surprised by childish behavior.

3) Rhonda described how every spring, cows moved to a new pasture will walk the fence and lean on it to make sure they can't get out. She said that when a teenager is on your last nerve, they are really just leaning on that fence. I say the same goes for 21 month old Owen's. She also reminded us that sometimes it makes all the difference when a teen is able to blame the boundary. "No, I can't skip school and go drinking at the beach, my Mom will kill me!"

Finally, she presented an object lesson. This is were the camera would have been nice. Typically, visual aids are not used from the big pulpit to help maintain a reverent attitude in the Chapel. But the Saturday night meetings are a little less formal as Rhonda said. Then she pulled out a big shiny meat cleaver which she described as a helpful but dangerous tool that you would not hand to a child/teenager without instructions and supervision. Then she pulled out a big axe which she described as a helpful but dangerous tool that you would not hand to a child/teenager without instructions and supervision. Then she pulled out a HANDGUN, a real honest to goodness handgun (I am not lying), which she assured us was unloaded and described it as a helpful but dangerous tool that you would not hand to a child/teenager without instructions and supervision.

As you can imagine, by this time she had the total attention of everyone in the chapel. Finally she pulled out what she called the most dangerous tool of all, which almost every teenager in the world is using everyday, usually with no instruction and no supervision. Can you guess? A laptop computer.

Rhonda described her frequent interaction with the newly formed and quickly expanding Alabama Task Force on Internet Violence Against Children. She related the story of a 14 year old girl from our area who was lured into a real world meeting with a 15 year old boy she meet on a chat room. However, this wasn't really a 15 year old boy, it was a 30 something year old man with a long, long record in slave trafficking. Really, really! For this girl a series of miracles happened and she was recovered in Ft Walton unharmed. However, the man and his associates got away. She is the only one of his victims known to have escaped.

Rhonda has some great advice. Don't let your kids have a computer in their room, keep it public and in this high tech world, you can't be a low tech parent.

Needless to say, she got her point across because 24 hours later, I can recall her whole talk almost word for word. Ross is already using his own computer to go online, but with lots of supervision and boundaries from his Daddy. Ross' computer sits right next to Jason's in full view of the kitchen.

I have no doubt, Rhonda's talk will be remember for a very long time by every one at Conference which certainly was her goal. I really wish I had had my camera, you don't often see a gun in Church!