General Conference To-do’s

The past two days, we have been watching the annual April LDS General Conference. I always enjoy watching Conference, and as usual, gained a clearer perspective about life, what is most important, and where my focuses should be to bring the greatest happiness.

Here are my todo’s from Conference. Many of these weren’t mentioned at all by the speakers, but they’re what I feel I need to do.

1. Put my home and family in order. This includes cleaning out and organizing the basement, securing our finances, building food storage, and figuring out how we’re going to educate our children. I want our home to be like the Temple – a house of love, a house of learning, a house of order, a house of God. I’d like to spend more time together, have less contention, and feel more bonded. This is my #1 focus.
2. Attend the Temple more regularly. I think I’ll try to get back to my once a week routine of going Wednesday mornings. I haven’t been inside the Temple at all this year (except for the Draper Temple open house), because we were in Panama for so long. So I want to get back into regular Temple attendance. I’ll also try to go with Jen more often.
3. Take more opportunities to serve others – even if it’s just asking in more detail about their lives, and taking time to listen. I want to slow down and enjoy life more, and put people first.

That’s it. Those are the main things I’m going to be focusing on right now, starting with putting my home and family in order.

Speaking of home, we have been thinking lately about moving into a new house, and renting out the one we’re in now. The rates are so good right now (5%) and there are some incredible deals out there. But we decided that it would be better for now to put more money away in savings and investments, rather than in an additional mortgage. I’d like to have at least 6 months of living expenses in liquid assets before we make any other major purchases. A new house would be nice, with more room, and a more comfortable living space, but what we have now is sufficient. Really, a bigger house won’t necessarily contribute to the happiness of our family anyway, and may actually cause additional stress because of the extra financial strain. We may look at moving again later when we have enough cashflow that it won’t be a burden at all.

I’ll also be talking to a lawyer next week about estate planning, setting up wills and trusts and llc’s to better secure our property and other assets. It’s the kind of thing you think about doing when you’re almost dead – I figure why not be prepared and do it now?

As for food storage, I recently received an advertisement from a food storage company called Shelf Reliance who will send you monthly food storage items for a monthly subscription payment. It sounds like an easy way to stock up on food, since for some reason, we have trouble remembering to pick up extra items when we’re at the store. It might be more expensive this way, but if it gets the job done, I think it will be worth it. You can choose the food you want them to send, and they give you nice shelves to put it on. I think I may give them a try.