March 25 Photo: Breakfast (and upcoming conference weekend!)

Breakfast on Fast Sunday (thanks for the tulips Mom!!)

Today's photo assignment is breakfast but it fell on Fast Sunday. So what would have been a picture of yogurt, fruit, eggs and a plunkett (is that how it is spelled?) from mom turned out to be a photo of an empty plate. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, once a month we forego two meals and make a contribution equal to or above the value of the meals to the Fast Offering fund.

Typically this Sunday falls on the first Sunday of each month but next weekend is special because it our Semi-annual General Conference, held in Salt Lake City and broadcast to members of the church world-wide.With all the interest in what being a 'Mormon' means in the USA with Mitt Romney's run for the 2012 presidential nomination, it may be a conference that gets more attention than ever by those outside the faith. 

We are lucky to have local television broadcast the four sessions of conference so that we can enjoy the speakers from the comfort of our couches. And those without the television broadcast can now use their computers to watch conference live. And the solution that many still rely on is to head over to the local meetinghouse where the conference session is received by satellite. And within 8 hours, these sessions are available online in 70 different languages!

I know that there are a lot of families with traditions around watching conference.  Some have special conference activity booklets for the children, bingo cards or even special foods (I remember cheese and cracker trays). Others contribute to shared notes on Google Docs or tweet quotes and highlights with the hashtag #ldsconf for those unable to watch the conference live. You may even see a repeat of what happened last October, when the names of speakers started trending on Twitter during the sessions!  What are your plans or traditions for Conference weekend??