One Conference and then Another

I just spent the better part of this week in conferences. The first one was the BYU Management Society's annual global leadership conference. Leaders flew in from all over the world to network, exchange ideas, motivate and to be motivated. They brought in world class speakers for us like Paul Gustavson and Stephen M.R. Covey. I got the former's book and I got the latter to sign my copy of his first book.

The lady above is the chapter president in Panama City. I decided to roll the dice and see if she knew my mission president, who also lives in Panama City. Not only does she know him, she's best friends with one of his daughters! I was also able to find out that Pres. Garcia is now the stake patriarch.

I really enjoyed getting to know people. In my efforts to market myself better and not be so shy, I got out and met at least half of the people at the conference. I was surprised to find out that there are healthy, vibrant chapters in Finland and Mongolia. It was fun to talk to the presidents of those chapters. It was also really enjoyable to get to know the leaders from Latin America. In the above picture you've got the leaders from all over Central and South America, plus two Gringos they invited to also be in the picture.

Here is a picture with just the Brazilian leadership, plus me. When someone asked if I was going to be in the picture I pointed out that I wasn't Brazilian. The chapter president from São Paulo smiled and said "We'll adopt you!" The chapter president from Fortaleza and I are making plans to do a sort of exchange between his chapter in North Eastern Brazil and mine in Utah Valley. I hope we can make it happen!

I really enjoyed rubbing shoulders for two days with competent business practitioners who are very interested in promoting principle centered leadership in business, all over the world. The desire to have a global impact for good was contagious. This included increasing participation among young people in general, women in particular, and also non-Mormons.

The LDS General Conference was really great. My uncle Greg was in town and Dad got us all together for the priesthood session. It was nice to have Uncle Greg around, particularly because he has stories about their growing up years that Dad has forgotten about. There should be at least four Boothe men in this picture next year as well.

Our friend and neighbor Juliana had never been to a live session of Conference before so we took her up to Salt Lake for the Sunday morning session. The sister missionary who taught her in Brazil also came and sat with us, in addition to getting us all tickets! The world is teeny-tiny small. The sister missionary who prepared Juliana for baptism has two siblings in our ward at church! What are the odds that Juliana would move into the same neighborhood as them and that should would have two neighbors on her street who could speak to her in her own language?

We were up in the very back row but it didn't matter to me this time. I just loved being at conference. Every session had powerful messages that I will be thinking about for a long time to come.

We tried to get tickets to the afternoon session by getting in the very long standby line. The ladies left me holding a place for them while they went and got the food we left in a cooler in the car. I said hi to a couple passers by that I knew (including one of the Brazilians from the leadership conference) and had a very nice conversation with a Guatemalan lady standing in front of me.

We didn't end up getting into the general meeting hall. This was a problem because Juliana's English is not yet good enough to understand the Conference without listening to the Portuguese interpreters with headphones. The only place you could get headphones was the Conference Center. We missed some of the beginning of the afternoon session looking for another place on Temple Square where we could get headphones with no luck. Finally, Becca thought to ask the volunteers back at the Conference Center if there was anything they could do for us. They gave Juliana headphones and then let us into the adjoining Conference Center Theater where there was a big screen set up for people to watch a live transmission of the conference next door.

Before we dropped Juliana off at her in-laws house in Sandy I helped her understand the difference between "on" and "in" in English (two concepts usually expressed with only one word in Portuguese). I then dropped Becca off at the farm in Thanksgiving Point and went home to relax. The past four days have been absolutely fabulous.