General Conference Primary Choir

Emily had the awesome opportunity to sing in General Conference last weekend.* It was a big time commitment and a lot of work to get ready for the big day, but she really enjoyed it. The choir director was Vanja Watkins, who has written several songs in the hymnbook and the Primary songbook. I stayed and listened to a couple of their practices, and Sister Watkins was absolutely amazing with the kids. I’m so glad that Emily had a chance to meet her and learn from her.

The Primary choir sang in the Saturday afternoon session of conference. Nate and I were lucky enough to get two tickets so we could go down to Salt Lake and watch Emily in person. I’m glad that we did. Seeing the look on her face when the Prophet walked into the Conference Center was priceless. It made all of the hours of practice worth it (at least for me and hopefully for her). We saw her on the screen a few times which was cool, but I’m glad we were there to see her the whole time. There were some squirmy kids in that choir and I was very happy that she was not one of them. She did just what she was supposed to do and I was so proud of her.

This is a picture of the whole group at the dress rehearsal the week before. Emily isn’t actually in it since she was at Kevin’s funeral, but her seat was the third one from the left on the fourth row.


Here is Emily on Saturday morning when I dropped her off at the church. I had been worried all week about her waking up sick or having some other tragedy keep her from going. Nate tried to reason with me, but I’m a worrier. It’s what I do. Luckily, Emily doesn’t take after me. She was totally calm. Not one bit nervous (and perfectly healthy).


These are all of the kids that went from our ward. They are such good kids!


Nate recorded the conference broadcast so Emily could watch it later. The rules for the Conference Center say that you aren’t supposed to take in cameras. Lots of people did anyway, but we didn’t. We pulled a couple of screenshots from the broadcast instead. They are probably better shots than our camera would have taken anyway.



It has been a long time since Nate and I have gone down to General Conference. Once we had parked the car (holy traffic, Batman!), it was neat to be there with thousands of other people to listen to our church leaders. We were both amazed (again) by the Conference Center. It is such an impressive building. We also realized that there are things you see in person that you don’t see from home. Nate caught President Eyring flipping through his binder during the opening prayer. Of course that means that Nate wasn’t being particularly reverent during the prayer either, but he thought it was funny that a member of the First Presidency would be using that time to look through his papers when he wasn’t even conducting that session.

Our other kids got to hang out with their cousins while we were gone. They had a great time. Jacob added to the excitement of the day with a football injury that earned him a ride in an ambulance. He’s okay. He just some pulled muscles in his back, but it made his football game quite a bit more interesting for everyone.


*There is a bit of a back story on how Emily’s whole conference singing experience came to pass. We found out way back in June that our stake had been invited to participate in a special Primary choir for the October conference. There was quite a bit of discussion among our ward leaders about how to pick which kids would get to participate. There are 25 kids in our ward between the ages of 9 and 11 and only nine kids could participate. Ben and Emily were both super excited about the opportunity to go. We tried to keep their expectations low so they wouldn’t be too disappointed if they didn’t get picked. After looking at different options, our bishop decided that the oldest nine kids that wanted to participate would be chosen. That meant that Ben would be able to go and Emily would not. When we broke the news to the kids, Emily did her best to be happy for Ben, but her little lip started to quiver and when I gave her a hug she started to cry. She pulled herself together and by the time we left for church, she was doing fine. What she didn’t know was that when I was getting ready, Ben came into my bathroom and said “Do you think I could give Emily my spot? I want to go, but it will be okay if I don’t. I think Emily wants it more.” That sweet kid brought me to tears. I was wishing that I had the wisdom of Solomon to know what to do. Nate and I both talked to him to make sure that he knew he didn’t have to give up his spot and that we didn’t want him to have any regrets. He was sure. We met with the bishop that day and Ben told him that he wanted to give his spot to Emily. The bishop gave his okay. We let Ben tell Emily when he got home. She was thrilled. I was so proud of him. In a big way it ended up being just as good of an experience for him as it was for her. I’m glad that when we look back on it we will always remember Ben’s willingness to sacrifice something that he wanted just to make his sister happy. I’m glad my girls have such a good big brother.