I listened to Conference so you don’t have to. Short summaries (sometimes very short) are mine and mine alone. Phrases or sentences within quotation marks are verbatim quotes based on my notes (so it’s possible they are not 100% accurate, but they’re close). My helpful comments are in italics inside brackets [like this]. I might offer a paragraph of commentary here or there.
Saturday Morning
Pres. Nelson – About Covid: “We thank you for following our counsel.” [Translation: We wish more of you would follow our counsel.]
Elder Holland – Be “all in” for Jesus. There were no contentions in the land when “the love of God did dwell in the hearts of the people” (quoting BoM).
Bonnie H. Cordon, YW General President – To the youth: Know who you are and know your purpose. Don’t get distracted, even by other good causes.
Elder Soares – Love your neighbor. Practice empathy, mercy, and kindness. Beam/eye: don’t judge your neighbor. [This was the best talk of this session.]
Elder Christofferson – Trying hard to clarify what is unconditional (God’s love, maybe) and what isn’t (pretty much everything else). [The whole tenor of Mormon salvation doctrine and Church practice is that pretty much nothing is unconditional. Bonus points: he quoted Hugh Nibley. Double bonus points: he took a thinly veiled swipe at The Loser Donald Trump.]
Clark G. Gilbert, a Seventy – Math! In Conference! y=mx+b. It’s your slope that’s important (and it should be positive) not your intercept at t=0.
Patricio M. Guiffra, a Seventy – His conversion story.
Pres. Oaks – Entire talk telling people to go to church, any church but hopefully the LDS Church, and giving a variety of reasons going to church is a good thing. [He did acknowledge that doing good is not limited to people who attend church.]
Saturday Afternoon
Elder Bednar – Recites the standard narrative of the LDS founding. Reference to “the heartache of divorce.” [Which he portrays as always the man’s fault. But if some men are jerks, then the women who get a divorce experience a deliverance, a blessing, not heartache. But I think Hell would freeze over before an LDS leader could bring himself to say, “Sometimes divorce is a good thing.”]
Ciro Schmiel, a Seventy – Feast upon the words of Christ.
Susan H. Porter, 1C in Primary Gen. Pres. – A tree of light as a metaphor of God’s love for us all. [Made me think of the two trees of light that grew in Valinor. And the White Tree of Gondor.]
Erich W. Kopischke, a Seventy – A first-class talk on mental health. Praises those who educate themselves about mental illness. [This was the best talk of the session. Links to this talk should be sent to every bishop once a week for a year.]
Elder Rasband – All the things (of my soul).
Christoffel Golden, Jr., a Seventy – Missed this one.
Another random Seventy – Missed this one, too.
Elder Stevenson – The gospel is plain, precious, and simple. He told four stories to illustrate his four principles (live the gospel, care for those in need, share the gospel, help families be sealed).
Commentary: Pres. Nelson made a remark in the morning session that all the speakers were going to talk about Jesus Christ. They all seemed to do so in the morning session, more or less. This is a new and welcome development, directing speakers to address a relevant theme, rather than letting every speaker choose their own topic, maybe relevant, maybe not, maybe way off base.
Saturday Evening
Commentary: Missed the whole thing. It used to be the Priesthood Session, then half the time it was a Women’s Session, and now it has just become another General Session. As if four sessions in two days isn’t enough. Couldn’t they just drop the Saturday evening session?
Sunday Morning
Elder Uchtdorf – Walk that way (making small adjustments to stay on a straight path). He talked about airplanes landing, and I had “runway Trump lunacy” in my notes. I have no idea what prompted me to write that. [My other reaction: Elder Uchtdorf has lost his mojo.]
Camille M. Johnson, Primary General President – Write your own story. [Bonus points: She has a law degree and was a litigator for many years.]
Elder Renlund – All for one and one for all. Stresses unity as opposed to all the divisiveness and contention stirred up in the wake of the Covid pandemic. Nice story about the temple in Finland and how LDS Finns worked to overcome Finnish-Russian animosity. [Bonus points for addressing the pandemic directly. This was the best talk of this session.]
Vai Sikahema, a Seventy – I like this guy! He can take the ball and run with it. More Sikahema!
Elder Cook – Can’t we all just get along? Against: hatred, wrath, strife. For: love, respect, kindness. Don’t exercise your agency in “harmful, hurtful ways.”
Pres. Nelson – Strengthen your personal foundation as never before. Shows five-minute video of Salt Lake Temple renovations, including reinforcing the deteriorating foundation. Dark days ahead. On temples, “recent procedural adjustments have been made” to the presentation, “and others will follow.” Claims temple ordinances are ancient.
Commentary: As with the Saturday morning session, it appears speakers were given a theme for their remarks in the Sunday morning session: unity and avoiding contention.
Sunday Afternoon
Elder Gong – It’s all your fault. Example: Trust is broken because someone tells you the Church hid something or lied about a matter of policy. [Gaslighting at its finest.]
L. Todd Budge, 2C in Presiding Bishopric – When he was called, he didn’t know what the Presiding Bishopric did.
Anthony D. Perkins, a Seventy – A cancer survivor, he spoke on pain and hope. Four principles … [This seemed like a fairly downbeat talk for a talk on hope, but I’m not gonna give a cancer survivor a hard time. I’m sure for a lot of people this talk is meaningful.]
Michael A. Dunn, a Seventy – A talk about British cycling. Get a little better everyday. A pocket-sized approach to repentance.
Sean Douglas, a Seventy – And a Texan. He talked about hurricanes. “Doubt is the breeding ground of spiritual hurricanes.” And: “When we choose to doubt …” [I think he’s denigrating doubt without really understanding it. Most of the time, when we believe a claim or doubt a claim, it’s not a choice, it’s a response to evidence or to the credibility of the claimant. Blaming someone’s troubles, “spiritual hurricanes,” on doubt is also a cheap move.]
Carlos Revillo, Jr., a Seventy – The four principles of the gospel are …
Alvin F. Meredith, III, a Seventy – Distractions … [My notes on this session are a little spotty. I was distracted by the Seahawks-49ers game.]
Elder Anderson – We’re not Mormons anymore. [The entire talk was a defense of abandoning the “Mormon” designation and changing all the names, titles, and URLs the Church previously used that employed that term. The fact that they are still defending this change and devoted an entire Conference talk to defending it shows how much resistance and confusion it has provoked.]
Pres. Nelson – “We choose those to whom we turn for truth and guidance.” Social media is not a reliable source. “Watch out for being derailed by false philosophies.” [I think he’s talking about politics, not philosophy, with that warning.]
Commentary: I don’t have a “best talk of session” for Sunday afternoon. Nothing really stood out. Thirteen new temples were announced by Pres. Nelson, nine outside the US and four inside (Forth Worth, Texas; Cody, Wyoming; Rexburg No. 2; and Heber Valley, Utah.
Wheat & Tares 
Dave B., I missed Saturday and only tuned in when President Nelson’s Sunday morning talk (and caught the rest of the afternoon session). I was initially intrigued by his talk about changes to the temple ceremony and his reference to the antiquity of said ceremony (this is a callback to a similar statement he made in conference in 2018). However, he never made any concrete statement about what those changes to the ceremony were or might be and he caveated his assertion about the antiquity of the ceremony by essentially saying that the temple ceremony has taken a wide variety of forms throughout history, essentially claiming that all temple rites (or at least those we recognize as legitimate) throughout history are kinda sorta the same thing. How you would say that the 1843 Mason-influenced ceremony (of which we now have a watered-down version) is really any sort of analog to those ceremonies that were performed within Israelite (and, some would argue, Nephite) temples and sacred spaces, I can’t fathom. That said, if this is a prelude for massive changes to current temple ceremonies to make them far shorter and to strip the Masonry themes from them, I’m all for it. I suspect the leadership is aware of growing (or at least more vocal) dissatisfaction with the temple experience and the lack of interest from the membership in attending the temple, no matter how close or available they are.
Dave: if you get the chance, listen to the Brad Wilcox talk from the Saturday Evening session. It was really powerful (IMHO).
Not a Cougar, I was thinking there may be Covid-induced changes in the works. Maybe incorporating some social distancing into the seating arrangements. Maybe having a touchless version of various activities. Maybe designating some sessions for vaccinated people and some for unvaccinated, or some with masks and others without. I suppose details of whatever changes are planned will trickle out as they are introduced. Personally, I’m hoping for a Revelation to Restore Cafeterias.
Dave, that’s an interesting point. I’m trying to think of how you would make the temple ceremony more “pandemic-resistant” and I don’t think you can really do it without drastically changing the ceremonies. Sorry if I seem focused on something relatively minor, but it’s something that stuck with me (I’m catching up on the rest of the sessions now so perhaps something else will take its place). I actually enjoyed President Oaks’ remarks as I agree there is a certain strength in group worship not seen elsewhere, but I’m not sure his message will resonate very strongly with those who don’t attend.
Two main reactions:
1. Gilbert’s invocation of math made his the best talk of Saturday morning. Otherwise, I agree with you on Kopischke and Renlund in the other sessions. Sharon Eubank’s report on humanitarian activities Saturday evening was also good. (They need to find a way to keep her speaking in Conference after she is released from the RS Presidency.)
2. I think you translated Nelson’s opening “Thanks” accurately, but I also suspect that the anti-maskers will translate it differently. As in “The Prophet thanked us, so we must be doing it right.”) The same goes for all of the calls for unity and seeking out reliable sources of information. Nobody (including me) thinks they are part of the problem and so such calls just reinforce the belief that the other side is at fault. They need to come right out and say “Joe Biden won the election” and “Q is a false prophet.” Can anybody imagine Abinadi being that vague?
President Nelson has a reputation for changing things and indeed he initiated a lot of change in his first couple of years as president. But this is the second consecutive conference sorry I don’t count the new logo as significant change either) in which there was no significant change at all. Nothing. Not saying this is good or bad but I think we should stop expecting GC to be a place and time in which major Church changes to procedures and policies are announced.
Also, I find it interesting that Holland got up and spoke as if his little BYU speech never happened. As if the blowback never happened. I’m not saying that he should have reiterated or refuted his previous message. But it would be nice if he at least acknowledged the impact of what he had said. Instead, it’s pretend-land as if nothing ever happened. His loss, because he was one of the most loved apostles prior to August. Heck, he probably still is.
Why, as noted above, was an entire talk spent on celebrating the end of the Mormon name? How did this inspire anyone to serve others or live a better life?
I was very surprised by one thing, and not surprised by the rest. President Nelson on Sunday morning said that God “honors your agency, you are free to choose who you will be–and with whom you will be in the world to come.” I was wondering if this is setting the doctrinal foundation for gay marriages or celestial civil unions, but I only wondered for 1/2 a second. Maybe this quote can be used to support LGBT relationships in the future.
What do people make of President Oak’s talk directing people to get back to church? He made no exceptions for pandemics. Is he saying that there are no more excuses and weekly broadcasts of sacrament meetings should end?
I wonder if, with the regular announcement of new temples, the need to fill temples ratchets up. Could changes to the ceremony also become regular events to add a curiosity factor to the motivation to attend.
Interesting take on Gong – haven’t listened, but very different from what I’ve seen others report. Thx for the guide on what to see & what to skip!
On calling every last thing “revelation” and “restoration” … me thinks thou doth protest too much. I’m all for change but the fanfare for minutia is a bit much.
I agree that Elder Uchtdorf has lost much of his mojo. Being put in the apostolic time-out chair has affected him, sadly.
This conference was fairly bland, for better or worse. No earth-shattering announcements or policy changes, but also nothing too controversial in the content of the talks. In that sense, it was kind of a let-down. I guess Pres Nelson has gotten all of his pet projects out of his system. And more temples for Utah and Idaho–good grief, they have enough!
It was nice to see the video segment about the construction progress on the SLC temple. I hope the general membership takes this as a message that the Church is planning for it’s existence well into the future (100+ years), rather than anticipating Christ’s return any day now.
It was also nice to see every session beginning with a reminder that all participants (including choirs) were fully vaccinated, tested and taking precautions against spreading disease. However, I wish speakers were more explicit about calling anti-vaxxers to repentance.
Jack Hughes: the SL Temple needs to be fixed so that Jesus has a headquarters when he returns. You really expect him to find office space at 50 North Temple St.?
josh h
Not the Salt lake Temple. Jesus’s office is in Independence Missouri. I think the Church would like to forget about that.
LOL!! 🤣 You specifically called Trump a “Loser”, even after all that he accomplished during his Presidency …
** Based on your statement, can one can presume that YOU consider Biden a WINNER? …
** Based on your Trump statement …for me, the weight of your opinions have lost much of their value …
You missed some real highlights on Saturday evening, go back for Sharon Eubank and Brad Wilcox. Bonus: double speed on the church’s new youtube channel!
plvtime, that’s an interesting thought re: “with whom you will be,” and I’d be happy to see it happen that way. I have a hunch that some folks will take it as an endorsement of (encouragement towards?) mixed-orientation marriage—something like “you may be attracted to same-sex partners more right now, but if you marry according to our rules and stick it out, God will help you figure it out after you die.”
I see a lot of danger in that line of thinking, though, and I would much rather take it as paving the way for more inclusion.
Ivy: It’s clearly a move to suck up and hopefully solidify the idea that whatever pet peeves the top dog has are equal to the word of God, so therefore when he gets to be top dog, we are even more conditioned to do whatever random thing he wants.
Trish: I sure as heck hope that Oaks isn’t saying to get back to church because the pandemic’s over, unless he’s very clearly excusing those who are not vaccinated or those who are immunocompromised or otherwise vulnerable. I wish we were through with this pandemic! It felt (to me) kind of like we were at a new normal since my entire immediate family has been fully vaxed since spring, but I just attended a funeral on the weekend for someone who died of Covid (exacerbated by unavailability of ICU beds), and today I have heard of five* people who were at the funeral who have all tested positive, at least two of whom were fully vaccinated, so these are breakthru cases for them. Given the nonsense being spouted by so many Church members, Church feels like about the least safe place to hang out.
*Updated to 6 . . . and counting. (Fortunately, my test today was neg).
Thanks for the summaries. I did not watch conference (I have lost all patience for it). These were very useful. On the Saturday evening session, my thinking is that they wanted to provide enough speaking slots to make sure that all the Q12 and FP had chances to speak. They also didn’t want to get rid of a session that has long been a tradition. I’m glad you brought up doubt and belief not being choices. Long a pet peeve of mine. I’m not in full control of what I doubt or what I believe. Maybe to some degree, yes. But beliefs and doubts are hugely caused, not determined through my own willpower.
Those of us who are widowed and cannot be sealed when we remarry heard the “with whom you will be” as an assurance that the current policy regarding widows’ not being able to be sealed to their living spouse as only a temporary thing.
More female speakers? Did anyone count? Seemed like it to me.
Even though I have OCD I will resist the urge to complete Dave’s list of all the assigned speakers…TBM wife knows I usually skip all of Saturday talks anyway.
Have seen fancy social media posts with RMN’s quote about focusing on Jesus, which is fine but ignores the glaring church history issues, billion$, Prop 8, Poelman etc. Also, in Sunday am session I did not detect any olive branch held out by Nelson to the LGBTQ community.
Sister Porter told of a disaffected friend but no explanation as to why he came back to the Church. Could have been helpful to some of us plagued by cognitive dissonance.
Don’t the counselors in the first presidency typically give two talks during conference? Eyring and Oaks only gave one talk each. I guess in the past their second talks came during the PH or general women’s sessions. Now that those sessions are gone the model must have changed.
Can someone elaborate on “Dark Days Ahead” in Pres Nelson’s Sunday morning talk? Was he being prophetic or hypothetical? Or just getting spooky for October?
It sounds like overall there were a lot of calls for unity, which is awesome. It also sounds like they think the way to achieve unity is by everyone conforming to their view of the gospel, which doesn’t sound very effective to me. From what I’ve seen, the happiest, most peaceful societies are also the most pluralistic.
P, yes! There were four female speakers and at least 3 female prayers. I echo the suggestion to listen to Sharon Eubank’s talk on Saturday night. Both Sister Eubank and Elder Budge (on Sunday) were instructed to talk about the humanitarian efforts of the Church. I thought that was a really good topic for conference. I also love that the Church News article summarizing the speeches reported the two female auxiliary presidents as “President X” rather than just “Sister X.”
When Elder Uchtdorf got up, he just seemed tired and sad. He couldn’t even fake some joviality. I’m not sure what’s up, but it’s more than a mojo thing.
Well, when you are in charge of correlation, your bound to get beat down….
Oh my heck.
I can’t believe that people are giving Elder Oaks a pass on wrapping up his talk on church attendance with a frequently censored (by correlation) quote by Parley P Pratt which calls women (wives of the bosom) eternal “ministering angels” who are given to husbands to comfort them and as a crown to men.
For those who aren’t paying attention, ministering angels were defined as lesser beings and servants of the exalted Gods in the Celestial Kingdom (D&C 132:16-).
You can see Oaks quoting this stunningly chauvinistic and elitist stuff in the conference YouTube video beginning. at 13:30
Do you think that quote will be edited in the transcripts/print conference? Isn’t anything proofread? What do you think Kristen Oaks thinks of being so named? Does he just get to come home and get a kiss after that? What delusion is he under, thinking this is an appropriate thing to say- ever- let alone in 2021? Doctrinally?
I can’t even.
Oops- here is the link to Oaks’ talk https://youtu.be/aChWyYI8EAw
Thanks for the comments, everyone. I think the discussion here is more interesting than the Conference itself …
lastlemming, you’re right — unless a GA speaker really gets specific, very few listeners say, “Yes, that’s me, I have a problem and I must change.” If the leadership wants to get serious about changing the anti-vax, anti-science, pro-Trump drift of the membership, they need to stop playing softball. Photos of Pres. Nelson getting a shot aren’t gonna do it at this point. They’ve spent two generations making “liberal Mormons” feel unwelcome. Time to flip the script.
Jack Hughes: “I agree that Elder Uchtdorf has lost much of his mojo. Being put in the apostolic time-out chair has affected him, sadly.” Or maybe he got discouraged watching the membership and a good chunk of the leadership fall hard for Trump.
RomeoBravo55, Trump is a loser. He lost the election by a landslide. His selfish antics and obsession with having lost the election cost Republicans two Senate seats in Georgia and cost Republicans their majority status in the Senate. His post-presidency charade at Mar-a-Lago has left the Republican Party swinging in the wind. GOP presidential hopefuls for 2024 (Abbott in Texas; DeSantis in Florida) seem to think their best shot at the nomination is to act like little Trumps, while millions of people read the stories and wonder what is wrong with these clowns. Yes, he is The Loser Donald Trump. In twenty years, he’ll be spoken of the way we talk about Joe McCarthy and Aaron Burr.
Trish and Angela C, I didn’t really catch that disconnect in Oaks’ remarks. It seems like he and Pres. Nelson owe us a “the rest of the story” press release. You can’t give a talk in 2021 about how great going to church every Sunday is without acknowledging the context (pandemic; masks; vaccines; immunocompromised folks) and without commenting on the current LDS policy for attending or not attending (which is just a confusing mess at the moment).
My review of Conference: Exponential growth is not a realistic model for just about anything. Stop using it as a motivational metaphor!
We’ll know the Church has finally grown up when the navel gazing stops – iow when we acknowledge the 2021 years of Christian history of which we are but a tiny part. GAs endlessly quoting other GAs has just gotta stop! Let’s include Augustine & Bonhoeffer for instance and broaden our ideas of the Family of Man. This is another horrible problem with $100B in the bank: it creates an illusion of invincible success, which bleeds into areas that have zero to do w/ $. This is how men think, especially re: money. When an organization operates on the principle of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” based on financial success the cliff is very near.
So Sister Jean Bingham gave a prayer in conference which was nice to hear. I wonder if that’s a first for a female president of an organization to pray in conference.
But what I’m more curious about is why is it that we have had ten general conferences since Sister Bingham was sustained as our General Relief Society President and yet she has only given three talks in any of the conference sessions. I suppose I’m biased and unrealistic maybe, but since she is a key leader for a large percentage of our membership, shouldn’t she be speaking pretty much at least once per conference? Does anyone have any insight here?
The long wait is over! I will share my thoughts on Conference with everyone. As a kid and until fairly recently, there was a buzz and excitement about Conference. There is something special about coming together, having some shared moments and being part of some exciting announcements or moments. This was a lot more palpable with a full Tabernacle or Conference Center. Covid and virtual sessions really killed the energy. Some of that energy returned with being back in the Conference Center. I tried to celebrate this with my family this time around. We had a big breakfast Sunday morning, showed my kids NFL highlights of Vai Sikahema and tried to capture attention for a few talks. That part was a success. I liked the Sunday morning talks (Uchdorf, Renlund, etc.). I liked President Nelson showing the foundation of the temple to people who would never get to see that and I wished they would do more things like that.
I felt pulled in all kinds of directions with the talks. I liked the calls for compassion, coming together and Christlike love. Did not like the beating of the obedience drum and the appeals to authority about why we should listen to the brethren. As someone who has really lost interest in going to the temple, I didn’t love all the emphasis on temple attendance.
In the history of the Church, it’s been difficult to get messages to members. Conference was a time to bring people together and instruct in a central location. Now this is really no longer necessary, the leaders could get talks to the membership easily throughout the year without traveling. Having 10 hours of speaking twice a year does not make sense. It seems like there is a sense it has to change, but some reluctance to do so (see the Saturday evening session). I think two sessions on Sunday would be sustainable along with more talks for special sacrament meetings and stake conferences throughout the year.
Temples have created a buzz at Conference. There are stats that show people become more devout when a temple is coming to their area. We’ve had the money to do it, so we’ve tried to build like crazy to get this result. I do not see this ending well. As people become more nuanced, they are generally less interested in going to the temple. I see us having a lot of empty temples in the next 10-20 years. I think it will be hard to get people willing to staff them and we will not have people interested in going regularly. President Nelson seemed to be laying the groundwork for big changes to the temple. I’m not sure this will make much of a difference in sparking interest in the temple.
felixfabulous: Regarding waning interest in temple attendance, I think that’s also related to a HUGE missed opportunity to remove the sexism. While they removed some of it, they doubled down on the polygamy undertones and “presiding” at the same time, and I can only imagine that the reason they did this is because they honestly think women are that stupid. They clearly aren’t willing to give up their own theoretical polygamy, and rather than make that sacrifice, every woman in the Church has to continue to be relegated to a harem of husband-worshiping priestesses.
Angela C.,
Exactly. As was explicitly stated by Oaks this past weekend in the quote I mentioned in the comments above. Both he and President Nelson live in spiritual polygamy. They’ve talked about it (esp. Nelson) in conference and in other venues.
Seriously, I don’t see this being raised anywhere else on the internet. It’s as though the conference was miraculously blessed and no touchy critiques are breaking through Twitter, FB, the bloggernacle, etc. Or maybe it’s because FMH is mostly inactive, and no one is keeping watch. I don’t know.
@mortimer, ok ok ok, I listened to (that 30 seconds of) the talk, even though DHO’s voice gives me the heebie jeebies and now I won’t be able to sleep tonight.
Gross. Weird. I don’t know why people aren’t talking about this, except maybe that none of my feminist friends bothered watching conference this year (or at least watching live).
The “networking” and non-inspired aspect of GA callings need to be restated as well – rising through the ranks as a good foot soldier, family relations, rubbing shoulders with apostles etc.
@Mortimer: I didn’t watch conference, but I just followed your link to listen to that bit of Oaks’ talk and sure enough, it’s appalling. He never fails to say something truly awful. How did people miss that?
@Angela: I know very few temple-attending women who have even noticed the doubling down, and they certainly don’t question it. They know there were *changes* and it’s *better* now—yay! If I point it out, it just reinforces to them that I am an anti-Mormon apostate and they shouldn’t be discussing this with me anyway. (Since I’ve left the church and only read about the changes, anything I say is naturally suspect) As long as women keep showing up, the men won’t change a thing—they don’t have to.
@Richard,
why the General RS President and female General Officers rarely speak in GC… from Exponent II blog.
“Calling More Women to Speak at General Conference: A Response to the Office of the First Presidency”
https://www.the-exponent.com/guest-post-calling-more-women-to-speak-at-general-conference-a-response-to-the-office-of-the-first-presidency/
While I tried to listen to Conference a bit (while driving) I found it to be a truly remarkable snoozefest. Even Nelson’s perfunctory announcement about all of the new Temples seemed so cartoonish and inconsequential. I don’t find the building multi-million dollar “spiritual parlors” to be very impressive anymore; particularly when so many are in such a great need. As I look back on last weekend, I’m not the least bit sad or disappointed that I missed some of it.