Closer to Christ through conference
We're two friends who love Jesus and this gospel, sharing our own approach to conference.
Hey, you guys. Welcome to our new podcast. Here we're going to dive into the timely and timeless messages shared in general conference on a weekly basis.
If you're someone seeking a deeper understanding of conference talks and yearning to hear the messages tailored just for you, you've come to the right place.
Our podcast aims to reach listeners who are eager to explore the insights and inspiration found within these talks.
As we journey through each episode, we invite you to ponder the questions we pose and reflect on the powerful truths shared by conference speakers.
However, more than just reading the words spoken, our goal is to empower you to trust your own process of seeking revelation and acting on those promptings you receive.
Ultimately, our hope is that through listening to these conference talks, you'll find yourself drawing closer to Jesus Christ and experience a deeper connection with Him in your daily life.
We look forward to opening this conversation weekly in a sequential review of the talks from one conference session to the next.
We've experimented with this podcast over the last couple years, probably, Amy.
I said year, and I'm like, I think it's been a bit longer than that.
And we're constantly asking for a little more direction on what our purpose is to be, what this podcast should look like.
And we have filmed other episodes that have never seen the light of day and never will.
But these ones, we hope will hear your ears, because we do think that we've heard what Heavenly Father has asked us to do, and it's what's culminated into this particular podcast.
It's not something either of us are super familiar with doing, and it was actually a prompting during conference a couple years back that set this into motion.
What we've decided is that people maybe have time for a short snippet daily.
Or not daily, they'll have a short snippet in the course of a week.
So we're hopeful that if we can keep this podcast to like a 15 minute platform, it'll allow our listeners like a jumping off point for what conference has to offer.
But the depth that you're going to go into that's really going to be dependent on the week that you have and how much you really need that talk in your life.
So that's going to look a little bit different.
Maybe we should introduce ourselves a little, Amy.
Sure. So I'm Amy Mazzolino. I'm born and raised in Mesa slash Gilbert, Arizona.
I now live in Wyoming with my husband and four kids.
We have a small farm with about 40 animals and we love learning and troubleshooting as a family.
Living this lower life and learning life's lessons through the beautiful world around us.
Right now, I'm currently serving with the cute girls in activity days.
She's the best. My name's Abby and I was born and raised in Idaho and I've spent the last 13 years here in Wyoming, been married for about 17 years and we have five children.
I currently serve teaching graduating seniors, life skills, mission prep, temple prep, kind of whatever we feel like.
And then I also get to teach the Valiant Nines in primary.
But when we first began developing this podcast, our roles reversed.
Amy was actively working in the primary and I was in Relief Society and we were thinking,
okay, you know, we do recognize women are out serving in different capacities in the ward or maybe not even able to attend church or just so many different dynamics.
And as conference talks are brought up in Relief Society and you can study them, you're like, I want to talk about them.
I want to get a little deeper into them, just that first passing through.
So now that I'm in primary and loving that calling, but missing my Relief Society sisters and that connection and that deeper look at conference,
I'm one of those people that I think benefit from this podcast that I get to still remain a part of that sisterhood of Relief Society, even though my time and attention is required somewhere else.
Absolutely. And we do miss you so much.
So I was even thinking, even if you are fortunate and you get to attend Relief Society on a regular basis,
maybe there's 12 talks that you're going to cover in the course between one conference to the next and then you're rolling through another set of awesome talks.
And so, you know, even in that case, there's some value here because it's going to touch on those talks that you don't like have some inspiration on to which ones are applicable for the ward to be in.
And so they're going to pick that top 12 and, you know, there's 20 something to choose from.
So hopefully, you know, as ones aren't picked that you are really craving to take a deeper dive in this will help guide you in your study for that.
We want to remind listeners in each episode, it's important to access the talk that we're covering in its entirety, either before or after the podcast.
We always want your impressions that you receive to be based on what you heard from the source, not just from us.
We're just here to open the conversation and make conference more than just the two best weekends of the year.
We want that spiritual uplift to last for you and to propel you to action and to change.
And then as we individually change, those messages are going to change.
You may think one thing if you listen to a talk this week and six months from now, you listen to that same talk and you think, I didn't hear that when they said it before.
We want to open your eyes to that meaning, you know, for the revelation is ready for you or your circumstances change.
And so the message is going to look a little bit different.
You're going to come up with some action steps that you're impressed to take.
They may stretch you for weeks, months, years, or some of them may be short and sweet.
It's just like, oh, I need to be doing this thing. You'll feel impressed to do that.
So it's going to be at your own pace and what you want to take on for yourself.
We really want you to make that individual.
If we make a suggestion of something that you can do with, you know, what we heard as an action step, if that doesn't feel right for you,
that's not what you need in your life right now.
Absolutely.
Throw that in.
You'll know.
Throw it on a bookshelf because sometimes it comes in handy later.
Yeah.
And if you really hate it, you can also throw it in the mental trash can.
One final thought as we consider our hopes and intentions of the podcast is that once your bucket's filled,
maybe you might start a small group or large group text or a chat group or occasional study groups that you get together and invite others to study conference with you on a weekly basis.
Your ideas and inspiration are valuable, but when you add that to somebody else's life, you interject that comment.
It might be just what that person needs.
And so it increases the value of that thought or inspiration that you had.
Agreed.
And also works both ways because they could say something that really sparks something in you and you're like, oh, there's something there.
We want to move on with that.
So it's just the fact that we elevate each other.
We lift together.
And I think I said it, if I rewind, I'm able to hear, but jumping off point, we don't mean for this to just like steer you.
Thoughts into one direction.
Absolutely.
What we mean for it to do is to open the idea of if I'm ready for this piece of information to come out, it's going to come out.
Amy just recently spoken in church in sacrament meeting.
So she had a time to put all of these thoughts together on what would you say, like preparing for conference or what?
Yeah, they really just asked, you know, the con or sorry, the subject was very broad and essentially just said, you know, talk about conference.
And so I did have a lot of time to think to crystallize my thoughts and to really bring it down to what what conferences for me.
I talked about it being for me.
It feels like love letters from heaven.
I love hearing all of the different things that are prepared for each one of us and how each one of us comes away with it feeling so very personal.
And I feel like one of the reasons I feel like it feels personal to me is because it's been years now.
I don't know, at least 18 years, I come to conference with at least one question.
Sometimes it's multiple questions.
And really, at the beginning, it would take me a while to formulate that question because I'd be thinking, oh, you know, conference is coming up.
And I would the week before, I'd really put extra time in extra thought in.
And I would kind of assess my life and see where I was at that point.
What were the pain points? What was I going through? What did my family need?
Was there a child who was specifically struggling? And then I would formulate a question and ask Heavenly Father, please help me to know this or that or to look at conference through that lens, really.
And I've been so impressed and excited and ecstatic because, let's say, some years I have three or four questions.
It's always amazing to me that the Lord absolutely like that's not overwhelming for Him.
It's not too much for Him.
And I still heard in crystal clarity the answers to each one of those questions in separate moments through separate talks.
So it was very much still a one on one kind of felt like a personal mentorship or personal revelation that I heard in these talks that were being prepared by the brothers and the sisters beforehand.
And then now it's kind of nice because since I've been doing it for so many years, there have definitely been years when I come into conference and I'm like, oh, I have nothing left.
Like all of my capacity is gone in doing something else.
And there is definitely a grieving process in that because I love conference so much and I do look forward to it so much.
Like it's very exciting weekend for me.
But even then, I'm able just to stop, pause for a moment and pull a question together, even if it's like I'm driving my kid to soccer or whatever it is.
It's because I've exercised that muscle.
It really doesn't take extra time, whether I'm putting laundry in, whether whatever I'm doing, I can have that question.
And last April, I really rolled into conference and I had nothing left.
And I truly, I was thinking of all the things I could ask and I really, after assessing my life, what I'd been doing for the past six months, I realized there really is no more room left to receive.
And so I just said to Heavenly Father, please let me feel your love for me and also just to be encouraged and hopeful as I move forward.
And so really, that's what I received.
And I was I was happy about that.
Like that was what I needed in that moment.
And then the other thing that I love is that these love letters from heaven now they are, you know, they're in audible form, they're in video form on our apps and online.
And we also get to read the words.
So I knew that I'd be able to visit those later on in the next six months.
And I definitely did that.
I think this is going to resonate with a lot of people because this fast paced life sometimes just don't feel like we have any more capacity in us.
Can you tell me what was your experience in that conference when you said, I don't have any more room for anything?
Did you just feel a measure of God's love?
Did you feel some direction like you need to do this, you need to pick this up or did you just feel some love?
Like, you know, what's interesting is I wasn't sure how it was going to feel going in because again, this is the first time I'd ever felt that.
And I was first, I grieved it.
I was sad because I was like, wait, I always want more.
I always have capacity to hear what Heavenly Father has for me, but it was like, that just wasn't the case for me.
And so I really do admit that some of the talks, they didn't have a place to land because there wasn't room in my heart for that at that point.
So for me, it was really nice because I knew the parts that kind of, I guess you could say it this way.
I knew the parts I needed to heal in my heart because I had enough clarity because I was going through a hard time and I just felt that there wasn't enough.
I definitely invited Heavenly Father into that healing process because I did that, He blessed me in turn with His Spirit to have eyes to see that even though in that particular conference,
some of the messages didn't land in my heart, they didn't resonate like they normally do, I had eyes to see that the messages were still there.
The love was still being poured down all throughout the world for every single person living who is listening to General Conference.
I just wasn't able to feel at that moment.
So, yes, I let, number one, I let Heavenly Father in.
And so He blessed me with His Spirit to see that the message was there and that I could heal and I could continue to work on the things I was and that there would be room for it.
And so that really is what I did.
I still wrote things down and in some talks, I just cried, but I still listen to each one of them.
I went to the, you know, when we afterwards, when we talked about General Conference, I think the next week, I still went to that.
I still had myself in a place where the Spirit could reach me and I still continued to heal in my own way so that these messages would be able to touch my heart.
When you said, are you talking, Amy and I participated in a study group with some fabulous women and they've grown our testimonies in a ton of ways.
And it's really served a purpose as we were getting into this come follow me habit and like, what do you study and how do you study and coming together with women.
And I think she's referencing usually after General Conference, we would come together and we would just say, what was our favorite talk?
What stood out to us and pow wow.
And I think it's so great because if you know you're not, I've come to those with like nothing really to share.
And I'm just like, okay, what stood out to these people?
Like what could I have caught if I had those ears to hear it?
But and I still had a favorite, but I loved it.
I studied it. I studied it.
So there still were messages that definitely hit my heart.
It just wasn't all of them.
Awesome. Any more tidbits in preparing for conference?
I feel like you covered a lot of things you've taught me over the years.
I do too. I really just just taking an assessment of where you are and then writing and formulating questions.
Sometimes if I can't think of it very well, then I will write it down.
Other times, it's really just while I'm driving or something.
Awesome. I would say through Amy and some other friends, like they've led me to different sites.
Like sometimes you'll read a scripture.
Sometimes you'll sing a song.
Sometimes you'll read a little story.
And the gist of it is to just prepare yourself daily as we're approaching conference.
I mean, sometimes I've been so on my A game.
I did a 40 day walk with Jesus Christ because I was also doing like a health challenge at the time.
I'm like, I need to get the walk in.
I wanted I want to get the conference talks listened to again.
And I felt like so ready for that conference talks.
And then, you know, everything that was a readdress, I was like that is that's resonating with me now.
And then it just kind of made all the talks even that much better as the new ones were coming up.
That's just say that's one year of conference prep.
Like I would say this year I was like more focused on making Easter a specialist Christmas.
Like that's my like new drive.
And so I was kind of tied up with that.
So I did preparation for it and I've and I've looked at the conference talks, but I would say it wasn't 40 days of preparation.
Right.
So one thing I mean, I have had some talks about is is that process the day of conference as it's coming, asking a question,
it makes all the difference because then, you know, even those messages are written for a worldwide church and for millions of members.
They can feel so personal and they feel like they're just just for you're like, how did they know to see that?
But I used to say like, OK, Elder Bednar is talking and this is what he talked on.
And that worked for a while.
But then I would go to these study groups and I'd be like, yeah, he said this.
And they my friends would be like, he never said that in a nice way.
I'd be like, are you sure?
And then I go back and look, I'd be like, sure enough, he did not say that.
So now I have come to realize for me and probably for a lot of you that first passive conference, you may feel impressed to just do this.
You have your question at the top of the paper and then you just write those thoughts as they come to you and not really worry so much about who said it to go back to it,
because it's more likely that it's the spirit saying those things to you than you get frustrated with.
Like, why did I hear that way?
Well, because that was the actual message you were supposed to be hearing.
And I would assume that these speakers would be just as excited as you are that because they were speaking and had gone to all that preparation and effort,
even if they didn't say what you thought they said that the spirit did for you.
So that's one piece of the process I'd say I'd add to what Amy was saying.
And I kind of mentioned this earlier, but I'm just going to reiterate it here.
The person that you are, the moments the words are said, you're a person.
You have certain life experiences that are happening.
Some time can happen. An event can happen.
Your child might need something from you.
You don't really know how to answer the question you have.
There's some things going on with a spouse or companion or friend or a million different things.
What you think you heard in that talk in the moment that they said it could look far different a week or two weeks or two months later.
So always be open to the idea that just like it's modern day scripture, just like scripture, scripture.
The thing that you need in that moment can be there, especially if you allow the spirit in that process that you're seeking the revelation.
100% agree.
So we have this conversation now and then like, you know, as Amy and I, we kind of each read through the talks
and as we're going to get going on episode, officially one or whatever we're going to call it, what each stood out to us.
And I'm like, that's what I'm just really heavy hitting right now.
But I think in, it would be so funny, like in two months, I'd be like, oh, what stood out to me?
Oh, this lineup, I'm like, that's not what I thought two months ago.
So that is what it is.
It's true.
Things change.
Yeah. And that's me too.
Like when they first came, the words first came to me last April, it didn't feel the same as after I'd worked through some things in October or just through the six months hit totally different.
Had place to receive, felt the love.
It was wonderful.
Right. And that's why I use the phrase that they are timely messages, but they're also timeless.
So the weekend that we're enjoying them, they're powerful.
And then when we have the capacity or desire or we want to go back and look at them again, there's something in there every time that we pass through them.
And we are so excited to get into that with you.
So, love it.
Join us as we embark on this journey of spiritual growth and discovery together.
We'll see you in the next episode.
Until next time.