When I was a teenager, my mom would pile a bunch of us in her van and drive us nine hours up to Provo, and we would spend a week at BYU attending Education Week. For four straight days we listened to amazing gospel classes and got to intermingle with other teenagers who shared our values. This trip was truly one of the highlights of the year. On the way back, we would all be utterly exhausted yet completely rejuvenated and full of kindness towards each other. The next week was always the first week of school, and I always went back with a determination to see my fellow students with love and compassion and to work hard to dedicate my life to my Savior.
The aura of Education Week never lasted more than a week in the hot desert sun, surrounded by the realities of high school. My determination to focus only on the most important things in life was soon dampened, and my perspective weakened. I remember always feeling so frustrated with myself, looking back at what I came home with, and seeing how those feelings had actually translated into my life. Sure, some changes were always made, some lasting, some not. But had I ever changed my life as dramatically as I had vowed to? Not even close. I longed to obtain a total conversion - forgoing all else to follow Christ with strict obedience.
I have that aura tonight. As an adult, I now get it from general conference. I sat listening today, with tears in my eyes and gratitude swelling in my heart for this marvelous gift I have been given - a chance to hear a prophet of God speak to me. I have been given a gospel that has brought me every bit of the pure happiness I have felt in my life. I know that even more happiness can come from more obedience.
And I say to myself, "This will be it. This will the time that sticks. This will be the time when I sacrifice even the somewhat good things in my life for those things that are better. I will be a servant of Christ from here on out, moment after moment, day after day."
It isn't like that though, is it? My habits and faults aren't overcome with a single weekend of total immersion in the Spirit. They are still there, locked up inside, to be sweated over and worked on. My pride is still intact and has to be sloughed off slowly and sometimes painfully.
So this is what I pray for - tomorrow please let me begin the day with a prayer. Please let me turn the day over to my Heavenly Father, so that I can learn the lessons that that day holds. Please let me keep some of that aura in the form of the presence of the Holy Ghost, and please let me be worthy of it. Please let the changes that I do make be lasting.
