Conference Report and Musings: Sunday

Random thoughts at the conclusion of LDS General Conference

1) I was wrong--no talk from Elder John H. Groberg. Too bad--he's still one of my favorite speakers.

2) One more mention of 'avoiding debt' and 'living within your means' from Sunday's talks--this time courtesy of President Faust.

3) I didn't feel Sunday's sessions were the equal of Saturday's. In fact, I've liked the Saturday sessions including priesthood much more than the Sunday sessions for quite a few conferences now, which leads me to wonder if it's really because the talks aren't as good, or if psychologically I'm already 'conferenced-out' after six hours on Saturday so that I don't have as much interest or enthusiasm for talks on Sunday. Ten hours is a long time...

4) Since we're on the subject, could there be a more efficient way of holding a general church conference? Ten hours (eight for the sisters) includes a lot of talks, and obviously not every talk is going to be spiritually meaningful for every person. If it were me, I could keep priesthood and combine the best talks from the four other sessions into two sessions--discarding the talks I didn't get much out of--and then gain the same amount of spirituality in less time. The problem with that is...not everyone in the Church is me. Just because I didn't care for a talk doesn't mean it didn't have a more meaningful impact on someone else. In fact, that's most likely the biggest reason conference covers ten hours, because it covers the entire Church population, but since everyone will respond to different subjects differently depending on age, gender, and personality, Church leaders have to try to cover a wide enough range of topics so that everyone can have a spiritually uplifting experience at least part of the time, even if few people can say they got something from every talk. In that sense, I guess there's not really much you can do. Ten hours over two days isn't that big a 'sacrifice' to make, considering the possible rewards.

5) There was very little direct reference to current issues such as gay marriage yesterday, aside from very basic generalities. It was a little different today, as Elder Perry directly referred to 'alternative lifestyles and family formations' and joined by Elders Shumway and Richard G. Scott who were slightly more direct. I say slightly, though, because for the most part speakers in this conference and in most other previous conferences, remained strictly (and sometimes frustratingly) general in their statements. There were at least five talks today that said more or less the same thing: Satan is 'attacking the family', the 'world's moral standards are decaying', etc. It's not that these statements aren't true because they are, but they're usually so unspecific that hearing them over and over soon becomes meaningless. Of course, Church speakers won't usually address a specific issue (like gay marriage) by name because it would cause controversy, and as I've said the purpose of conference is to give the most people possible some kind of spiritual experience without causing conflict. Still, wouldn't it be rewarding for someone to address the issue directly instead of using common generalites? If gay marriage is wrong (which I believe), why not tell us specifically why it's wrong, and why we shouldn't support it. This is one of the major complaints from members about General Conference--it's too general (ditto for the Ensign). More specific talks would cause controversy, yes, but in most cases the church's position on issues (like gay marriage) is clear enough outside of General Conference for anyone paying attention that in a sense the 'controversy', if any, already exists, and thus not addressing it in a conference talk gains nothing.

6) As a corollary to (5), how many people thought President Hinckley's short and sweet tribute to his wife at the end was a more effective lesson than all the other speakers who said general things about 'supporting the family'? It's easy to feel the love from President Hinckley's remarks, because they were specific and personal. I've found the most effective talks include stories and personal experiences involving individual people applying gospel principles in their lives. It's one thing to talk at length about 'loving your family', but quite another to share an experience or demonstrate through your actions some way a person can specifically show love for their family. I find it's these stories that are more easily remembered as time goes on, and can more easily be applied into our lives causing us to be better people.