Anyway, I enjoyed General Conference, and something that stuck out to me was a particular emphasis on the individual. Heavenly Father values individuals. The Church values individuals. It is important to pay attention to the one; many gospel stories are about the actions of individuals contrary to crowds.
In a student ward, it is easy to fill lost and unknown. But I received a reminder these last two days that Heavenly Father is always aware of individuals and, by extension, most of his servants are too.
Today, one of my roommate's former roommates came over and watched Conference with us. We ate lunch together between sessions, and I said something my roommate perceived as being stereotypically me. "Katie," she said, "You're a genuine individual." I smiled, because I knew that was her way of telling me nobody else thought or talked quite like I do. But then I got to thinking. (Yes, yes, dangerous pastime, I know)
Aren't we all genuine individuals?
No two people on this whole planet are exactly alike. Not even identical twins. All of us have different personalities, different tastes, different passions. All of us have unique ways of expressing ourselves. All of us are, in short, genuine individuals.
And ironically enough, though the world encourages individuality with its voices, it tends to pay much more heed to the crowd. In the process, I'm afraid genuine individuals try to shed their genuine individuality in favor of something that will act as crowd camouflage. And if Heavenly Father had intended us to all be the same, He would have created a bunch of clones--don't you think?
That's why I liked the emphasis on the one during this General Conference. The scriptures advise us to be "in the world, but not of the world." Part of what I glean from this admonishment is that we are to stay true to our values and ourselves, despite what the crowd thinks. Even sometimes when we thought the crowd had the same standards we did. Was is "that Polonius dude" who said "To thine own self be true?"
If we've been receiving the counsel and advice from this many sources for this long, how long will it actually take us to be ourselves and ignore all of the other voices?
Again I say: we are all genuine individuals.
And that fact makes someone we know smile every day.
(Trust me. Just ask my roommates.)
