We had Ward Conference today.  The Stake President made a great analogy.  He has started running and made several comments about how slowly he runs.  He said he sees all of these really fast, strong, young people running by with wonderful looking strides.  He said he wished he could borrow their strength, youth, or stamina to help him run faster... but that it doesn't work that way.  He then talked about the ten virgins.  In the same way that we can't borrow someone else's stamina and strength that they've worked hard to build while running, we can't borrow someone else's oil.  He said Elder Bednar says the "lamp" is the lamp of testimony and the "oil" is the oil of conversion.  We can't borrow someone else's conversion, but have to build it drop by drop by the little things we do.  And just as a runner practices to build up his or her endurance, we need to practice to build our oil of conversion.  Many of us have testimonies and know something to be true, but we are not truly converted and don't make the commitment to act on that testimony.  He even said that the adversary probably has a testimony of the gospel and its truthfulness, but obviously is not converted to that truth.  It was an interesting thought.

He also made another analogy to trout fishing.  He said they would go fishing near Yellowstone when the edges of the lake were still frozen over.  They could lean over the edge and see the large trout hiding under the ledge of ice.  If they quickly tried to grab the fish, the fish were too fast and swam away.  But, if they very slowly put their hand in the water and slowly moved the hand along the fish and slowly started to squeeze around the tail, then they were able to snatch it at the last minute.  The fish didn't suspect anything because it's used to brushing up against things in the water.  He said Satan uses the same tactics and will slowly start tempting us with small things until he's so close that he's got us.

I'm on the up side of my cold which is nice.  The youth are having a General Conference Activity tonight to help them get more out of General Conference.  And guess who's teaching the rotation on the music?  Lol... me.

I'm starting off with some fun trivia about the Mormon Tabernacle Choir found on this Infographic.  http://ldsmediatalk.com/2013/06/22/infographic-mormon-tabernacle-choir/.  Then I'm going to tell them about the mice study I recently wrote about in an English paper.  It's fascinating enough that I'll share it here.  In 1998, David Merrell ran three groups of mice through a maze.  They all ran the maze with a time of about 10 minutes.  Then, one group of mice listened to no music at all for 4 weeks, one group listened to classical music for 10 hours a day, and the third group listened to hard rock music for 10 hours a day.  The mice were raced at the end of each week for 4 weeks.  At the end of 4 weeks, the group that listened to no music at all improved their time by 5 minutes.  The group that listened to classical music, improved their time by over 8 minutes to 106 seconds.  That's fast!  The group that listened to hard rock music decreased their time by 20 minutes and took an average of 30 minutes to run the maze.  I read similar studies and some mice in the third group actually would stop racing and start killing each other.  Pretty scary.  There have been similar studies in humans showing increased test scores and increased neural stimulation when listening to classical music.

Then I'm playing different musical clips and asking how it makes them feel and why.  And also, what memories the songs evoke.  Most clips are from movies, so certain memories will be elicited.  Then I'll of course play part of a Mormon Tabernacle Choir piece and another cool arrangement of "I Am a Child of God" and ask the same questions.  I'm trying to make the connection that not only does music make us feel a certain way, but also provokes certain memories and thoughts.  We should listen to the words of the music and think about times or experiences in our life when those words have been true or made us feel a certain way.  Also, that the music is approved and sometimes requested by the prophets and apostles and so is a specific message they want us to hear.  "The song of the righteous is a prayer unto me"... we wouldn't walk out during a prayer to use the restroom... the same respect should be shown for the musical prayer that we are listening to and the message that was selected for us to hear.  Anyway, there's a little more I'll share, but that's the basic connection I'm trying to make... thoughts, memories, and feelings associated with music.