April 2025 General Conference Trip to Utah

I think this is the shortest trip we've taken to Utah, but it was worth it! I sent an email to the Stake to see if we could get General Conference tickets. I don't remember my motivation for it except that it was a prompting. I knew that it would be Emily's last time covering Conference for the BYU Universe. I asked for six tickets, thinking that would be too many and Brother Johnston said he had them and sent them right over to me. It was for the Saturday afternoon session. I had said six because that was everybody except for Emily and then I realized that was dumb and she would want to sit with us and she would probably try to cover a different session than the one we went to. So, I went back to him and apologized and asked, “Is there any way I could have one more,” and he forwarded the seventh one to me and said it was the last one they had and it was perfect timing. I can't tell you how grateful I was for that! I thanked him profusely. The seats were all together, which was surprising because in the past they offered me multiple seats but not next to each other and I remember turning them down at least once because what was the point if we couldn’t sit together as a family? I later learned that it really doesn't matter if all the seats are together because they just have you fill in the seats as you come in and not worry about what your seat number is so that's important to remember for the future, but I just thought that was such a great tender mercy that we were able to get enough tickets for our whole family. I knew it would be expensive to go because we (me, Michael, Daniel, and Jonny) had to fly since it was such a short weekend, but it was completely worth it. We even got to celebrate Nathaniel's birthday with him. Nathaniel and Audrey ended up deciding not to go with us because it was too hard to coordinate with Charlie, but we were able to give those two tickets away to someone who was very grateful so it all worked out.

April 4, Friday

Daniel picked Jonny up at school so he could get home a little earlier and finish up his packing. I think it was about 3:15 PM by the time we left which was good. We were able to park in the daily lot and get to our gate. Our flight was delayed about 45 minutes or so but it worked out fine. The only bummer was that Charlie was already asleep when we got there. The flight was uneventful so that was also good. We had pizza and cheese sticks and wings with Emily and Nathaniel and Audrey. We ate and talked for a little bit and then went to the hotel. We stayed at the Residence Inn Provo North again. 

April 5, Saturday

It's been a long but wonderful day. I'm so glad we came on this trip and I'm so glad that we got to see Conference in the Conference Center today. I was glad that Daniel was feeling better this morning. He wasn't feeling well last night. Emily picked us up and we were in Salt Lake City by 9:30 AM. It took us a little time to find a place to park, but we found a spot in the City Creek parking garage and walked over to the Tabernacle. It took us a minute to figure out which way to go because we had started following the crowds to the Conference Center but we got that figured out.

There was a long line wrapping around the Tabernacle so we were concerned that we wouldn't get a spot but it turns out they didn't open the door until the Conference session started at 10 AM and we were easily able to find a spot to sit up in the balcony. There was actually plenty of space on the bottom level as well but we had great seats. I was pretty excited that Elder Holland was the first talk. 

We had lunch at the mall. That food court at the mall was insane! We were able to get our food and find a table to sit together and enjoy it. I got Kneaders, Emily got Sbarro, Jonny got Chick-fil-A, and Michael and Daniel got Subway. We headed over to the Conference Center a little after 12:30 PM. I really wanted to see the Five Virgins statue at the Relief Society building so we were able to walk past there.  

A nice Australian lady asked if we needed help and explained where we needed to go. I thanked her and she said, "No problem, mate." As we were walking around the building looking for the statue, a gentleman asked our family if we had extra tickets. He said he needed seven and I said we only had two and he was super grateful for that so I gave him the two papers. On the drive up there, I had talked with Michael and the kids and asked their opinion on which tickets we should give away, thinking the seats were assigned. They're not really assigned. The sections are assigned, but then you just file into whatever row and seat is the next available. So, I wasted time worrying about that. Just add that to my long list of things I worry about that I don't need to. 

Anyway, back to the statue. We were able to find it and get some pictures and I got some video. I got video at various places throughout the day today. I ended up with about 18 different videos that I sent to Emily so she could make me a video for Stake social media. Then we headed over to the Conference Center. We got a couple pictures and then we walked in. 

Then, we went up to the balcony and walked around and explored. Emily was pretty excited about exploring. She went all over that balcony floor. By about 1:20 PM, I was getting nervous and so was Michael and we knew we needed to get to our seats so we did. 

That's when we found out that they don't even check where you're supposed to sit. They just tell you to go down as far as you can and go to the right. I took some pictures for a family and another lady took pictures for us. President Nelson watched from home today but it was still a very cool experience to see the rest of the First Presidency and the apostles up at the front. The session was absolutely wonderful! It was a youth choir this time. 

We decided to exit through the roof and it took quite a while to get out of there but I got some nice pictures and video. I got some more pictures and video on the street that was closed off between the Conference Center and the Salt Lake Temple. 

We walked back to the mall, found a bathroom, and went to the car and drove to the hotel. Michael drove both ways so that was nice. The trip home was actually pretty quick. We met Nathaniel and Audrey at Happy Sumo and had a nice dinner together. Everyone got an entrée and we got four different sushi plates. We were so happy to see Charlie! They let me hold him and we passed him around. 

We decided to go get dessert at Yogurtland. We enjoyed our FroYo and then went over to Nathaniel and Audrey's house. It was already 8:45 PM by the time we sat down to watch the evening session of Conference. I gave Charlie his little Easter books and I gave Audrey her Hershey butterbeer Kisses and gave Nathaniel his birthday card. Charlie was fussy and tired and needed to go to bed so Audrey took care of him and said we should go ahead and watch Conference without her. That's when I gave Nathaniel his card and we sang happy birthday to him quietly. 

We only watched Elder Stevenson's talk. Then we had to go because we had an 8 AM flight. We said our goodbyes to Nathaniel and Audrey, and of course we had said our goodbyes to Charlie earlier, and then headed over to the hotel. Emily dropped us off and we said good night to her and got ready for bed.

Here is Charlie at the Eldredges on Sunday when they went over there to watch Conference.

April 6, Sunday

We got to the airport by 6:15 AM and quickly got through security so we had almost an hour before they even boarded. It was a nice uneventful flight. We quickly got to our car and got home. It was only a few minutes after 9 AM when we arrived, which was about 30 minutes after we landed so that was really nice. We brought in the suitcases and watched the morning session. I took a nap. Then we watched the afternoon session together. Later, we had family home meeting with the boys we talked about Come, Follow Me and the talks that stood out to us. Mine was Sister Camille Johnson's about being "spiritually whole in him." Jonny liked the one by President Stephen Lund, the young men's general president. Daniel liked the one by Elder Kearon, where he talked about getting a gift of a truck like the one from the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. His message was to receive the gift of our Savior. Michael liked the talk by President Nelson, of course, like we all did. He said the way President Nelson told us that the Lord is prompting him to tell us to prepare for the Second Coming was said in a way unlike any other in the past. He also liked the talk by President Oaks where he gave specific examples of people who are like the five foolish virgins from the parable of the ten virgins. Multiple talks were about the ten virgins. In fact, Michael said that on Saturday morning when he prayed to know what he should study, he was clearly prompted to study Matthew 25 which is exactly where the parable of the ten virgins is. Anyway, it was a wonderful day. After family home evening, we had a prayer and then played Uno No Mercy. It's the first time we played it and it was pretty fun. Michael won both games. It was nice to see Jonny happy and laughing. Then we all got ready for bed.