Anewly cleaned Salt Lake Temple, polished for its centennial commemoration, is gleaming on Temple Square this weekend, April 3 and 4, as proceedings of the 163rd general conference begin.
Conference sessions are being held just a few days before the actual centennial of the Salt Lake Temple dedication on April 6. Workers have spent the past year cleaning the temple exterior, which now has a lighter gray look to it.Coverage of the 163rd annual general conference will appear in next week's Church News.
All conference sessions will originate from the Tabernacle on Temple Square and are scheduled for 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. (MST) on Saturday and 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. (MDT) on Sunday. The general priesthood session will be Saturday at 6 p.m.
The sessions will be televised over the Church satellite network to more than 3,000 meetinghouses throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Jamaica, the West Indies, and the Dominican Republic. "The Mountain of the Lord," a 75-minute film commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Salt Lake Temple dedication, will be shown over the satellite network between the Saturday morning and afternoon sessions.
All sessions except the priesthood session will be transmitted via satellite to more than 1,100 cable television systems in the United States. As a public service, portions of conference will also be broadcast on commercial television and radio stations in the United States.
Church units or members in North America and Hawaii with proper TV satellite reception capabilities may receive the conference broadcasts via the satellite in English, Spanish, French, German, Cambodian, Haitian, Hmong, Korean, Laotian, Mandarin, Navajo, Portuguese, Samoan, Tongan and Vietnamese. Cantonese and Creole will be provided for selected sessions.
The Saturday and Sunday morning sessions will be transmitted to 26 Church-owned downlinks in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Netherlands and Belgium. Also to be transmitted on the downlinks will be "The Mountain of the Lord" film and the Sunday morning Tabernacle Choir program, "Music and the Spoken Word." The Sunday morning session and the choir program will be live transmissions. The others will be on a delayed basis.
Videotapes of conference sessions will be available through distribution centers in areas of the world where the satellite and other transmissions are not broadcast.
By wearing special headsets, non-English speaking Church leaders and members attending conference in the Tabernacle, Church Office Building, North Visitors Center and local ward chapels are able to listen to conference proceedings in their own language through interpreters stationed in the lower level of the Tabernacle.
Translator-interpreters are on hand to translate into Bulgarian, Cambodian, Cantonese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Haitian, Hmong, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Mandarin, Navajo, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Samoan, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Thai, Tongan and Vietnamese.
Conference also will be communicated via sign language to a gathering of the hearing-impaired in the Church Office Building auditorium. All TV broadcasts will also be close-captioned for the hearing-impaired.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir will sing during the two Sunday sessions of conference and the Mormon Youth Chorus will provide music for the Saturday morning session. Saturday afternoon's session will feature a Single Adult Choir from the Ephraim, Logan, Ogden, Orem and Salt Lake Institutes of Religion. The Saturday evening priesthood session will feature the Priesthood Choir from Ricks College.
Those attending conference will also find that spring is in full bloom on Temple Square as thousands of flower plantings such as poppies, pansies, forget-me-nots, violets, primroses, hyacinths, daffodils and scilla brighten the grounds. The magnolia trees are also in bloom, noted Peter Lassig, Church landscape architect.
