On this Easter weekend, Church members are convening for the 164th Annual General Conference of the Church, being held under the direction of the First Presidency. While several thousand are gathering April 2 and 3 on Temple Square in Salt Lake City for the conference that originates in the Tabernacle, tens of thousands more will be tuning in via radio or television.
General sessions of the conference are at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. MST, Saturday, April 2, and 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. MDT, Sunday, April 3. Priesthood session will convene at 6 p.m. MST, Saturday.As has been since the early days of the Church, Latter-day Saints are gathering in conference for the purposes of refreshing their faith, strengthening their testimonies and learning further of the ways of the Lord from His duly appointed and authorized servants.
The following information may be of interest to members of the Church:
Church satellite network. All sessions of the conference are being carried live via satellite to more than 3,000 meetinghouses equipped with satellite receivers in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the West Indies, Haiti, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. In addition, all sessions are being transmitted via satellite to more than 1,100 cable television systems in the United States.
Church units or members' homes in North America and Hawaii that have proper TV satellite reception capabilities may receive the conference broadcasts via the satellite in the following languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Cambodian, Cantonese, Haitian, Hmong, Korean, Laotian, Mandarin, Navajo, Portuguese, Samoan, Tongan, and Vietnamese. English and Spanish will be on Channel 23 (4160 MHz); all other languages will be on Channel 7 (3840 MHz.)
"In a Land Called Israel," a special featuring the Tabernacle Choir's tour to the Holy Land, will be transmitted on the Church satellite system in English between the morning and afternoon conference sessions on Saturday and Sunday.
The Saturday and Sunday morning sessions and the Sunday morning Tabernacle Choir program, "Music and the Spoken Word," will be transmitted to 100 Church-owned downlinks in 11 languages on Intelsat K, Transponder 6V (11545 MHz). The signal will be accessible in Eastern Europe on larger privately owned satellite dishes. The Sunday morning session and the choir program will be a live transmission. The Saturday morning session will be on a delayed basis. "In a Land Called Israel" will be transmitted after the Saturday morning delayed transmission in English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish, Italian, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish.
Television and radio stations. All sessions, except the priesthood session, are being carried live by KSL-TV, Channel 5, in Salt Lake City. Listeners may tune in to KSL-News Radio, 1160, for live broadcasts of all sessions, except the priesthood session. Also KSL-News Radio will rebroadcast the previous day's sessions midnight to 4 a.m., on Sunday, April 3, and Monday, April 4.
Portions of the conference will be provided to commercial television and radio stations, and cable networks in the United Sates on a public service basis.
Viedotapes. Church units where the satellite and other transmissions are not available will receive videotapes of the conference sessions.
Non-English languages. Many non-English-speaking Church leaders and members from various parts of the world may listen to conference proceedings in their own languages. Translators are on hand for 34 languages: Bulgarian, Cambodian, Cantonese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Haitian-Creole, Hmong, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Mandarin, Navajo, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Tahitian, Thai, Tongan and Vietnamese.
Sign language, closed captions. Sign language interpretations of conference proceedings are being made available to those who are hearing impaired who may meet in the Assembly Hall. All television broadcasts of the conference sessions are being accompanied by closed-captions. Japanese sign language is being provided in the North Visitors Center on Temple Square.
Music. The Tabernacle Choir, under direction of Jerold Ottley and Donald Ripplinger, with Clay Christiansen and John Longhurst at the organ, will provide music during the Sunday sessions of conference. The weekly broadcast, "Music and the Spoken Word" will be broadcast at 9:30 a.m.
A Relief Society choir from the Olympus Utah Region is providing music for the opening session Saturday morning. Bonnie M. Winterton is directing and Bonnie Goodliffe is accompanying at the organ. Music for Saturday afternoon's session will be by the Mormon Youth Chorus, with Robert Bowden directing and Linda Margetts accompanying. Music for the priesthood session will be provided by a Melchizedek Priesthood choir from the University of Utah Region. Edgar A. Thompson will direct and Richard Elliott will accompany at the organ.
Volunteers. More than 220 volunteer ushers are serving on Temple Square, providing assistance to conference-goers in the Tabernacle, Assembly Hall and on the grounds. Language translators and interpreters are virtually all volunteers who have donated many hours of their time in preparation for the conference as well as providing their language skills during the sessions.
Temple Square grounds. Church landscape architect Peter Lassig, his staff and grounds crew have planted thousands of flowers on Temple Square and the adjacent Church Office Building Plaza. Flowers include poppies, pansies, forget-me-nots, violets, primroses, hyacinths, daffodils, scilla, chionodoxa, arabis, and aubrieta. Conference-goers may be fortunate enough to see magnolia trees in bloom as well.
