I watched Conference so you don’t have to. Brief or very brief summaries and/or comments on each speaker. My comments are generally in parentheses or, at the end of each session, in italics.
Saturday Morning Session
Pres. Eyring conducting from the seated position but with a firm voice. Music by the Tab Choir.
Pres. Christofferson presents GAs and other leaders for sustaining. Any objections, contact your stake president.
Elder Gong of the Twelve, on temple service. Temple access is a sacred privilege, not a right. Don’t complain about small temples. Interestingly, he stated that those who later in life do not want or simply reject earlier temple sealings or ordinances will not be held to them; they will no longer be in force.
Sister Tamara W. Runia, 1C in YW. The Gospel is not the umbrella, it’s the solid rock we are standing on during the storm. The talk is pushing back against the popular LDS version of the Prosperity Gospel.
Elder Causse of the Twelve, on testimony. He suggests all disciples of Jesus Christ should should bear testimony. Your testimony may be different from mine, which is why you need to bear it and other people need to hear it (the idea seems to be so others can benefit from diversity of testimony, an interesting view — but I’m not sure he knows how much diversity is out there). He says “I know” is an expression of love for our neighbor.
Vai Sikahema, of the Seventy. He is Tongan. He played in the NFL. My kind of GA. He warned against false prophets.
Kevin J. Hathaway, of the Seventy. Pattern: Opposition comes; seek assurance from God; grace arrives; deliverance from afflictions, in God’s good time.
Elder Soares of the Twelve, on fasting. He repeats LDS folk doctrine on fasting and “the law of the fast.” None of it really makes much sense.
Sean Douglas, 2C in Presiding Bishopric. Missionaries, we thank you for your service. Missionary work is a priesthood responsibility. Young men are expected to serve. It’s optional for young women. (It’s puzzling why he goes out of his way to insert this mild put-down of sister missionaries, who are now about half the missionary force.)
Pres. Christofferson of the FP, on gambling. He’s against it. Smartphones have made gambling much more accessible and pervasive. The House always wins; guess who loses? Sports betting is especially enticing to teens and young men. He says gambling is morally wrong; it offers nothing of value and enriches only its purveyors.
Best of Session Award goes to Sister Runia, for pushing back on the Prosperity Gospel. My short summary did not do justice to her talk. Go read it when it is out.
Saturday Afternoon Session
Elder Anderson conducting, music by a choir of singers from northern Utah.
Elder Renlund of the Twelve, on perspective. A biblical literalism reading of Exodus. Don’t get hung up on the little things.
Timothy L. Farnes, Pres. of the YM. Minister with compassion to whomever God places in your path.
Christian C. Chigbundu, of the Seventy. By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.
Patricio M. Guiffra, of the Seventy. On tithing. You’ve heard it all before.
Jeremiah J. Morgan, of the Seventy. On the Book of Mormon. He grew up Mormon but not LDS.
Hutch U. Fale, yet another Seventy. On … the Family. And Love. “The divine pattern of the family.” (No specifics on who is in or out of compliance with this divine pattern.)
Elder Kearon of the Twelve, on learning to fly. Quick poll: Pink Floyd (“Can’t keep my eyes from the circling skies”) or Tom Petty (“Learning to fly, but I ain’t got wings”). Uchtdorf has some competition.
Michael A. Dunn, of the Seventy. A humble brag about running a hundred-mile ultra marathon.
Matthew J. Eyring, of the Seventy. Shares a few more traumatic experiences. (That seems to be the theme of this Conference, sharing traumatic experiences. For some listeners, these are daggers in old wounds.)
Elder Rasband of the Twelve, on those wayward souls who have left the Church, breached their covenants, and made their mothers cry. The Devil pulls loved ones off course. But love them.
Sigh. I have no Best of Session Award for this session. Too many Seventies, not enough Sisters (n=0).
Why all the accounts of death and dying friends and relatives? Such stories elicit a strong emotional response in listeners. Given how much the Church now relies on emotional testimony methods, this is one way to activate/strengthen those testimonies. “Yes, I feel something …”. Maybe you have a different theory. In any case, such accounts seem to be showing up in GA talks more now than in previous years.
I listened to an audio feed so I don’t recall who the speaker was, but the story about the patient who grumbled about his hospital oatmeal after being miraculously saved by a second donor heart really rubbed me the wrong way. Is the speaker so lacking empathy that he couldn’t and still can’t recognize that the complaint wasn’t really about the oatmeal? The patient had just undergone a very traumatic experience where he and his family had had to come to grips with the fact that he was going to die only for everything to change in a moment. Not everyone processes such moments quite as gracefully as they might hope, but jumping to the conclusion that the patient was ungrateful for the miracle in his life seems like the completely wrong conclusion to draw, at least to me.
I read McKay Coppins’ article in the Atlantic about gambling. Elder Christofferson should have cited it using the author’s name, given that he referred to the article extensively.
I liked Fale’s and Kearon’s talks because of the focus on love. We don’t have to earn God’s love, and we’ll never lose it. Quoting President Monson and Elder Uchtdorf. The positivity was welcome!
I am ten time zones away, so I appreciate the summaries.
Actually, eleven time zones, but Utah does Daylight Saving Time. I am glad that Elder Caussé allows for variances in individual testimonies.
Just getting to the end of the Saturday morning session. YouTube allows us to adjust the tempo, so that the slow speakers don’t send us to sleep. I did feel the need to speed up some of the choir pieces.. I m not sure it’s even possible to sing “his eye is on the sparrow” any more slowly. The line “I sing because I’m happy” was at funereal pace.
But why oh why do the church see the need to monetise the general conference videos. The ads are extremely annoying.
Okay, last speaker Saturday afternoon. The individual session videos are up on the church website now. So we tried that. We could still adjust the tempo, and thankfully no ads. Far fewer buffering issues than previous years..
I liked Farnes’ and Kearon’s talks, with the caveat what happens when those things that previously produced lift now cause sink.. as it were..
Thank you to the chorister for taking the congregational hymn at an appropriate pace.
“Elder Gong of the Twelve, on temple service. Temple access is a sacred privilege, not a right. Don’t complain about small temples. Interestingly, he stated that those who later in life do not want or simply reject earlier temple sealings or ordinances will not be held to them; they will no longer be in force.”
Interesting. Who is demanding access to temples? Are some members getting upset that the nearby temple that Pres Nelson announced is not yet getting built?
The new teaching that you can reject a temple sealing by just not wanting it anymore is … different. Perhaps the First Presidency is getting overwhelmed with cancellation of sealing requests. Solution: eternal covenants can now be broken by changing your mind. That is a huge change. I’ve toyed with removing my name from the Church’s records to break the born-in-the-covenant thing with my parents. But now I can leave that eternal family by just wanting to? How did that get past correlation?
The application to second marriages will be really interesting. Can a woman whose husband dies, and she remarries, choose the second husband for eternity by just wanting it?
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Linguist, I imagine the footnotes to the written text of the talk will include a reference to the Coppins article. Which I read when it came out a couple of years ago — very enlightening.
Yes, the choir pieces in the afternoon had a very slow pace.
Janey, that was such an interesting claim made in Elder Gong’s talk. I want to hear it again to nail down *exactly* what he said about sealings, as opposed to my on-the-fly notes.
Dave B. The choir in the afternoon were faster than the choir in the morning. If still a bit slower than I’d have liked.
I did not hear Elder Gong’s statement on sealings (my son decided he wanted to vacuum just then). But I suspect he was referring to their being invalid in the next life. (This is something that I have l believed for a long time.) I would be very surprised if he meant that women could mentally cancel a sealing while alive, then enter into another without a formal process.
What ads?
Huh?, my husband and I were watching the separate YouTube (not livestream) Saturday Morning session video on Sunday morning here in the UK. I can assure you there were a lot of ads on YouTube, in contrast to our viewing of Saturday afternoon (also on Sunday morning here in the UK) through the church website where there were no ads.
Thankfully that was not the case watching the Sunday morning session (after the fact, so we were still able to adjust the speed of speakers) using the Sunday livestream video on YouTube (the church website literally sent us to YouTube for this) here on Sunday evening. We’ve still to view Sunday afternoon (too late at night for me over here), but I imagine that will be a separate video not a livestream too.
I didn’t review Christofferson’s talk but my social media flood is pretty lit up over it.
I mean, sure, as a product of the year 1980, I was taught that Mormons don’t gamble, and I taught my kids that as well. But I’m guessing my kids never heard that in any formal lesson in their lifetime. My kids recollection of church now three years removed is don’t drink coffee, hate queerness, America is the best, and covenant path/temple stuff.
Gambling, food storage, Satan, R-rated movies, playing cards and Ouija boards, non-stop second coming, lost tribes, and all the other stuff I learned about Mormonism growing up simply isn’t discussed anymore. Church leaders operate under the delusion that Mormons spend their free time devouring church archives and know all this stuff but when they stop talking about it, it quite literally disappears. These young kids and their sports betting had no idea their faith tradition disapproves. Now they know.
As a CPA, the whole “but your 401k is gambling” really chaps my hide. These same folks probably own crypto. Dumb.
Chadwick,
Yeah, I joined a newer sports gambling company last year as a software engineer and our leadership made it very clear gambling is a form of entertainment, not investment. There are a lot of gamblers who seem to understand that and therefore can participate in a way that is healthy and fun. But, there are obviously those that don’t and hence the Coppins article. Where I work, I’ve been given $100 in monopoly money to “gamble” with to learn the system. I can understand the draw, but for me, the math just doesn’t math for me. I’m terrible at it and I don’t particularly like the anxious feeling that comes with it. But, I’ll be honest, the whole “morality” bit gambling the church is trying to make because it gain achieved with out work is hypocritical to me. They’ve made hundreds of billions off investment which is gain achieved without work, but they don’t seem to have a problem with that.
Pink Floyd
chrisdrobinson, maybe investment is ok because they’re making money off other people’s work. The distinction is subtle and yet important.
Tom Petty!
Former Nonbinary Sunbeam,
I mean, maybe? But that seems like splitting hairs when Christofferson calls out specifically that no work happens for the gain attained.
>Elder Soares of the Twelve, on fasting. He repeats LDS folk doctrine on fasting and “the law of the fast.” None of it really makes much sense.
Is it still folk doctrine if an Apostle teaches it in GC?
Gambling is a zero sum game–someone has to lose so someone else can win. With investment the hope is that properties will increase in value according to the demands of the market–nobody has to lose.
chrisdrobinson, I think you might have read that with a little less snark than what I intended. 😀
Firstly, I’m not pro-gambling.
Secondly, I don’t follow the whole gambling is a net zero game. So are sports events. Someone wins and someone loses. Yet BYU has all the sports.
Also, board games. Someone wins, someone loses, yet board games are a big part of any FHE.
Recreation?
So what?