General Conference

I have many happy memories of General Conference.

When I was a child, our television may have been black and white, but we got conference—all 3 days and 6 sessions of it! It may have seemed boring, but I liked the special feeling that was in our home when conference was on.

At BYU, like many others I occasionally took the opportunity to attend conference in person in the old Tabernacle with the hard seats and pillars blocking our view. If not, then it was on every radio and TV and piped all over campus. It was in the very air.

It’s now held in the new conference center, and we often have the choice of watching it on cable at home in our jammies or going to the church. Usually we opt for going to the church.

I’ve never understood people who think conference weekend is a vacation, or why attending one session fills the minimum requirement for church that week. Don’t they know that “…the expressed will of our Heavenly Father comes to his people at conference time..." ? Alvin R. Dyer CR 10/66
Prophets, seers, revelators and other inspired leaders are telling us what God wants us to know right now! David O. McKay said, "...the Lord has magnified each one who has spoken to the end that his words have emanated from the presence of our Father." CR 10/65
Does anyone really want to miss any of what the Lord has to tell us?

I remember when I started to enjoy conference. It was when I started really listening. As an adult, I listen pretty well now. But sometimes I really hear, with my heart and mind, and not just my ears.

There have been times when I knew without a doubt that a particular message was truly straight from the Lord. I’ll never forget hearing Tanner’s talk on the role of women, Maxwell’s talk on The Not-Yet Game, Benson’s talk on pride, Bednar’s talk on the Tender Mercies of God, and Jeffrey Holland's on the Lord's succor. Truly messages from a loving Heavenly Father.

Conference for me is always kind of a checklist to see how I’m doing. How much I get out of it is part of the test.

General Conference is a time of nostalgia, of feelings and memories of the past, but it is also the thrill of hearing current revelation straight from Heaven.
There is no greater thrill than that.
I surely wouldn't want to miss it.



Tabernacle dedicatory prayer:
"And we dedicate and consecrate that portion of this house where our president and thy servants now are, to be a holy and sacred place wherein thy servants may stand forth to declare thy words and minister unto thy people in the name of thy Son forever...
May the holy angels and ministering spirits be in and round about this habitation, that when thy servants are called upon to stand in these sacred places, to minister unto thy people, the visions of eternity may be open to their view, and they may be filled with the spirit and inspiration of the Holy Ghost and the gift and power of God; and let all thy people who hearken to the words of thy servants drink freely at the fountain of the waters of life, that they may become wise unto salvation, and thereby overcome the world and be prepared for an everlasting inheritance in the celestial kingdom of God."