A.M. For the first time in a long time I did a 20 miler with a 10 mile tempo at the end. I ran the warm-up 10 uphill in 1:16:14. On the way back I ran 58:01. Benjamin ran with me for the last 4. He dropped me in the last 200 meters. His time for the last 4 was 23:17, I got 23:20. Felt strong, but for the life of me could not consistently stay under 5:50, kept slipping. Perhaps a subconscious fear of the distance. Nevertheless I am happy that even though I did not feel super speedy at the start, I was able to maintain the pace throughout the tempo and never really felt too miserable. Benjamin did 10, Jenny 3, Julia 2, Jacob 1, Joseph 2. When I got home Sarah had not yet done her run, so I went with her for another 2. So I ended up with 22 miles. Listened to General Conference. Had a bit of trouble staying awake, but it was not too bad. Was able to understand the talks.
P.M. Took William and Stephen to the track with Benjamin to help me. Asked Benjamin which one of us was more out of commission. He thought it was I. So he ran 0.5 with William while I followed Stephen around. Listened to General Conference again. Then went to the Priesthood Session with Benjamin in the evening. Some General Conference highlights. Elder Uchtdorf explaining our relationship with God. He does not set up commandments just so we would fail to keep them and then just sits there and anxiously waits for us to trip up. Rather, He sets them up to show us the way out of trouble. He rejoices at our successes, and when we fail, He helps us recover, just like any good parent would. Elder Scott - if the young generation reviewed a scripture for every text message they send, they would become great scholars of scripture. Elder Callister - the idea that young men should accelerate their spiritual development and arrive in the mission field more mature. A few weeks ago in Sunday School we talked about Joseph Smith's vision, and in particular what it was like for his father to have a 14-year old son come to him and announce a vision. Most members of the class found it rather remarkable that the father believed the son right away. The reason given was that a 14-year-old is so immature that anything he says that is unusual would hard to believe. I did not say anything at the time, but I thought about what it would be like if Benjamin came to me and told me he had had a vision. I realized I would not have a problem with that. Yes, just like many young men his age he occasionally experiences a lapse in judgement. But overall he is on top of things. He is spiritually in tune, he knows what the voice of the Lord sounds like, frequently he is able to correctly point out my errors in a mature way. If he told me the Lord had spoken to him, I would not doubt for a second because I know he would not speak of such things lightly.
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