GC is coming up, and as a teenager, I'm always forced to watch it with my family. For those of you who have to watch it for one reason or another, what are some methods you use to keep yourself sane?

I don't want this post to be all negative, so what are some GC traditions you actually enjoy? My family has cheesecake and pumpkin pie every GC, so I usually stay sane by stuffing my mouth with cake.

Our rule was that conference had to be on in the room where you were. So I would read and when I read I tune everything else out. Didn't hear a word of conference.

If I couldn't read, I'd probably put time into cleaning up my Evernote or similar app.Tagging. Editing out junk from Web clips and so on.

Clean out your email or chat app.

Spend time with a bullet journal and its collections. Move your life forward in the dead time of conference.

I like to tune out and escape into my imagination. It's great because it appears like you are listening to conference but you are mentally someplace else.

My family didn't have any conference traditions, mostly because we were converts and not all of us joined. Maybe I'll start my own tradition of making brownies every conference weekend to celebrate that I no longer have to listen to those boring talks.

I was the weirdo family that went to the stake center to watch GC because my mom felt that watching GC on cable TV wasn't spiritual enough. So I brought a tablet with blank paper to sketch or draw. I also made Xerox copies of an interesting magazine (non church interest) article to hide within the tablet. Oh the tablet was to take notes. So for 1-2 minutes, I wrote some notes like- Dumb Hinckley thought he said something funny then made a smirk for the camera (I'm dating myself). As the talks proceeded, I was either reading or drawing. It was a pretty good ploy so long as I convinced my mom to sit on the side and not the middle pew. I always told my mom that I had a kink in my neck and needed to sit on the side- worked great so long as I didn't argue about attending GC.

Maybe you could wear air buds and enjoy listening to something else. You could say that air buds have higher quality acoustics and you don't want to miss a single word from GC :)

Turning it into a drinking game would not go over well with your parents, besides which, you are underage. :)

You could make GC bingo cards, consisting of words routinely said in conference, and have the whole family play along.

GC would be about the right amount of time to memorize the Cyrillic alphabet. why? Why not? You may get to visit Ukraine or Russia some day.

Even better, OP could ask his folks about the Deseret Alphabet. Want to bet they've never heard of it?

(Yes, OP, the Deseret Alphabet was real. It was one of Brigham Young's pet projects.)

The deseret alphabet was simply spelling words as the sound, with one symbol being written for each sound. Symbols were added for th, sh, ch etc.

My grandmother made me learn it, I still have the workbooks.

She was convinced it was the writing system that would be used once came.

. . . visit Ukraine or Russia and eat at an awesome pectopah* or two!







*ресторан must have been about the sixth or seventh Russian word I learned, and that was back when the only salad available was pickled cabbage. . .

The word "bap" is also essential for travelers.

Ресторан, in real Cyrillic. I tried to read it as Latin script first, and wondere what you were referring to.

For the non-Cyrillic readers in the audience, a quick lesson
P is the Cyrillic R, same as in Greek rho.
C is the Cyrillic S.
H is the Cyrillic N.

E, t and o are e, t and o. Sort of.

Hence, “restoran”

Much of Cyrillic is just stylized Greek alphabet, plus a few weird letters whose invention I think may have involved a bit too much vodka.

Much of Russian history "involved a bit too much vodka."

Perhaps we all need too much Russian history in our lives then.

Well said, comrade!

I love the Cyrillic alphabet. I had wanted to learn since I was a kid and would see it on the signs at train stations in old horror movies. It's pretty too, the letters and the sound. Much softer and melodic compared to Russian. A language for song and poetry.

Я люблю вивчати українську мову. I like to study the Ukrainian language.

ask parents if/when the GAs will announce completion of the JST / 'inspired version' of the Bible;

that can stop an 363 Kg Gorilla at 50 meters!

My mom was absolutely TBM, but she was also an NFL fan. I remember visiting her during an October Sunday conference session. She had the TV in the family room set to conference, and the TV in the bedroom had an NFL game on. During hymns, she would check on the Football game. If it was an exciting moment, she would miss a bit of the next talk.

my TBM daughter had tickets to conference (her good friend in the ward was stake RS president then and got her tickets every conference--my daughter wasn't raised mormon from age 7 on--she went back so liked going to conference).

SO, I volunteered to go with her to SLC from Hyrum. Interesting that people were begging on the streets for our tickets.

The people here had talked about how they brought up tithing in some fashion every talk and I had never noticed that, so that is what I did. I listened to hear if every speaker mentioned tithing and how they got around to including in their talk. They all did talk about it and they all mentioned multiple times in their talks.

Just surf the internet.
Come to RfM and give us a running play by play of the most absurd BS so we can poke fun at the absurdity of it all.

Work on school stuff while you listen. Those AP classes are time consuming! You have things to do and there are only so many hours in a day.

They may let me do that on the Saturday session, but definitely not on the Sunday session. Good idea though

It's boring usually. Bring a pillow and fall asleep. If your parents complain, tell them you can't help it if their voices are sleep inducing. Tell them you are tired from having to go to early seminary. Tell them you are listening with your eyes closed. ZZZZZZ
;-)

General Conference is comedy gold. It's hilarious how seriously these guys take themselves. You can't script this. They back it all up with a huge pipe organ, straight out of the Wizard of Oz. Associations with Joseph's rather busy love life not included.

"Sanity underperforms and is completely overrated."
        --Anonymous


"No sane person has ever left his mark on the world."
        --Hank Mussolini, to his son, Benito


"If you have a choice between sanity and a tuna sandwich, even if you're allergic to fish, take the tuna sandwich."
        --Albert Einstein, unattracted to you know what


"Sane people make good neighbors, but you'll need a lot of vacation time."
        --Inanis Patrimonio Putent, Esq.


"Sometimes she was sane, and sometimes she was crazy.  You can tell by her tax returns..."
        --Justice Dodge, Plymouth Assize, Chrysler Building


"Shawn Sanity would never get his own show; just not enough pzazz..."
        --Zazu Pzazz, self-promoter

   

"Life is long between the desire and the spasm."

--T.S. Eliot, the Greatest English Poet (apologies to Kentish) of the 20th century

Feign having COVID. It's the only way.