General Conference - A Perspective and a Look Back

I don't know about you, but every 6 months I get excited about General Conference. To me it seems like the talks, as well as the music, are getting more and more momentous. It appears as we near the final days of this earth's existence, the church is increasing its intensity in preparing us for the Lord's return. The talks seem to be more personal for me, as I'm sure they are for you.

Over the years there have been some "hallmark" conferences in my lifetime. I remember when President Kimball made the announcement of revelation that had been received allowing all worthy male members the right to receiving the Priesthood. The building of the Jerusalem Center in the Holy Land, was another one. President Hinckley's announcement of building many more temples marked a new era of temple building. I read some news speculation recently indicating that, for the first time in the history of General Conference, women will be offering some of the prayers.

The history of our Church's General Conferences go back to June 9, 1830, shortly after the April 6, 1830 organization of the Church, Joseph Smith, by revelation, called the first General Conference. Only 27 members were present. Now millions participate throughout the world.

Conferences continued as early members moved from New York to Ohio, Missouri and Illinois. One 1833 meeting was held on the Big Blue River ferry boat in Missouri, for example, and the geographically scattered members continued to meet in various locations until most settled in Nauvoo, Illinois. Then in 1840, conferences began the semiannual schedule. The first conference meeting outside the United States was also held in Great Britain that year.

The western exodus of the Church, which began in February 1846, meant no general conference. The meetings resumed along the trail in Iowa and Nebraska and then began in Salt Lake City in 1848.

Meeting facilities were limited in the newly settled Salt Lake Valley; the first conference was convened in a bowery. The industrious settlers built an adobe tabernacle as a meeting place and then began construction of the world-famed Tabernacle that sits on Temple Square today. The first general conference meeting there was conducted in 1867. Conferences continued in the Tabernacle until 2000, with occasional 19th-century exceptions when gatherings were held in other Utah cities: Provo, St. George, Logan and Coalville.

A nationwide 1919 flu epidemic postponed conference from April to June of that year; another flu scare forced the cancellation of the October 1957 meetings. During World War II, general conference was confined to Church leaders only as wartime travel restrictions impacted members. The Tabernacle was actually closed during this time frame; the leadership meetings were held in the Assembly Hall, also on Temple Square.

Wider access to general conference commenced with a radio broadcast in 1923 and a television transmission in 1949. Conference sessions were viewed beyond the Intermountain region beginning in 1953, while satellite broadcasts began in 1975 and Internet availability started in 1999. Conference messages were first translated into different languages in 1962.

Members across the earth gather in conference sessions to hear doctrinal messages from Church leaders, to demonstrate support of those leaders, and to hear pronouncements of change in Church programs and policies or news of the Church, such as locations for newly constructed temples. The music of the famed Mormon Tabernacle Choir punctuates the sessions.

Some of the significant pronouncements that occurred during conference meetings include the 1973 creation of the Welfare Services Department, the unit of the Church that oversees all the worldwide humanitarian efforts of the faith. In 1975 the First Quorum of the Seventy was organized, the Second Quorum in 1989 and the Third, Fourth and Fifth Quorums in 1997, all providing greater localized leadership for the growing worldwide Church population. Also in response to the geographic expansion of the Church, then President Gordon B. Hinckley announced in 1997 the construction of smaller temples in more remote areas of the Church. A program to provide educational loans for worthy members in developing countries, the Perpetual Education Fund, was introduced in the April 2001 conference.

As we sit and listen to Conference this weekend, let us be ready to receive the personal messages that the Lord will deliver through his servants to us. There will be answers to prayers and personal revelation received, as well as what the Lord would have us know right now.

I love you all for the standards you are living, and the counsel you so willingly receive. Listen, and the Lord will speak to you this weekend.

Love, Dad