The following links provide excerpts from some of the conferences of the church. For a complete directory of all General Conference and other conference talks, visit www.lds.org
(See Welcome page; Church Leaders home page for brief
biographical sketches of many speakers)
General Conference
General Conference is a church-wide, bi-annual meeting held by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Conference is held on the weekends containing the first Sundays in April and in October. So, when the first falls on a Sunday, General Conference includes the last Saturday of March or September. There have been some exception, one was in October, 2000 when NBC broadcast the Olympics and church station KSL was an NBC affiliate. The Summer Olympics were held later in the year than usual due to their being held in Australia and necessity of having spring weather. The April meeting is called the Annual General Conference, and includes annual statistical and financial reports not included in the October meeting, which is called the Semiannual General Conference. The conferences are identified by the number of years since the founding of the Church in 1830.
The conference includes four two hour sessions starting at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Mountain Standard Time on both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday night, a Priesthood session is held for the men of the Church. There are also annual Relief Society and Young Women conferences held for the women and young women of the Church. These are held a few weeks prior to General Conference (Young Women's in March, Relief Society's in September). General Conferences were historically held in the Tabernacle at Temple Square. Since 2000, though, sessions are held in the the much more accomodating Conference Center adjacent to Temple Square. Any member or visiter that has obtained a ticket is able to attend. Locally, General Conference is broadcast live on television or on the radio. Elsewhere, people can watch conference via satellite broadcast (often shown in Church meetinghouses) or on the internet. All of the talks given can later be read on the Church's website or in the Church magazines, the Ensign and the Liahona. Recordings of the sessions are also available on CDs and DVDs. May and November Ensigns are are composed of conference talks instead of the regular set of articles, which normally includes a First Presidency Message (normally shared by home teachers) and a Visiting Teaching Message message. Home teachers and visiting teachers on these occasions can draw from General Conference to prepare a message for their families.
