What Is General Conference? The Latter-day Saint Gathering Explained

Twice a year, something unusual happens to your Latter-day Saint friends. On one particular weekend they go quiet on Saturday, post a favourite quotation on Sunday night, and talk for weeks afterwards about "conference talks" the way other people talk about a series they have just finished. What were they watching — and why does a weekend of speeches hold that kind of place in their lives?

It is General Conference, the worldwide gathering of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There are no ballots and no business in the ordinary sense, and yet members regard it as one of the most important weekends of their year. Here is what happens, session by session, and how families actually experience it.

A gathering held twice a year

General Conference is held twice a year, on the first weekends of April and October. The April conference carries a particular warmth for members, since April is the month the Church was organised in 1830 and, in Latter-day Saint belief, the season of the Saviour's birth and Resurrection. The October conference opens the autumn with the same structure and the same sense of a worldwide family checking in together.

The heart of the gathering is the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah — a vast auditorium seating 21,000 people, filled for each session with members and visitors, many of whom applied for tickets long in advance. But the Conference Center is only the largest room, not the real size of the event. Every session is broadcast and streamed worldwide, translated into many languages, and watched in meetinghouses and living rooms on every continent. A family in California, a branch in Ghana, and a student alone in a dorm room are, in the Church's own understanding, attending the same conference.

The sessions, Saturday and Sunday

Conference unfolds across the weekend in a series of sessions, each about two hours long. As currently structured, there are general sessions on Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon, a session on Saturday evening, and further general sessions on Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon.

The Saturday evening session has taken different forms over the years — at times directed especially to particular groups within the Church — and in its present form it is a general session, open to and intended for all, held as the Saturday of conference draws to a close. If you are invited to watch one session with a friend, any of them will give you the flavour of the whole: prayers, hymns, and a succession of talks, usually four to six speakers in a session, each speaking for roughly ten to fifteen minutes.

There is no collection, no altar call, and no requirement to be a member. Visitors are welcome in the Conference Center and online alike, and the talks are addressed as much to the curious and the struggling as to the committed.

Who speaks — and what they talk about

The speakers are the Church's senior leaders. Members sustain a First Presidency — the President of the Church and his two counsellors — and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and talks are given across the weekend by members of the First Presidency and the Twelve, together with other General Authorities and general officers of the Church, including women who lead its worldwide organisations for women, youth, and children.

A talk is not a sermon improvised on a set text in quite the way some traditions practise. Speakers choose or are guided to topics — faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, families, service, endurance through hardship, the Book of Mormon and the Bible — pray over their preparation, and deliver an address that members receive as counsel for the coming six months, not just the coming week. The President of the Church, whom members sustain as a prophet, usually speaks more than once, and his addresses are listened to with particular attention.

Music runs through every session, and for many viewers it is half the memory. The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square — the Church's celebrated choir, broadcasting weekly for generations — sings for most sessions, joined on occasion by other choirs. Even viewers who come only for the music tend to stay for a talk or two.

Sustaining, and the announcements everyone waits for

Two recurring moments give conference its distinctive shape. The first is the sustaining. In one session, the names of the Church's general leaders are presented, and members everywhere — raising a hand in the Conference Center or at home — sustain them in their callings. It is a public, repeated act of consent and support, and any member may also register an opposing vote through the channels the Church provides.

The second is the announcements. Major news in the life of the Church is often saved for conference: new leaders called, changes in programmes, and — most eagerly awaited of all — new temples. When the President announces the locations of new temples, usually near the close of the Sunday afternoon session, living rooms erupt; families whose city or country is named may be in tears before the sentence ends. There are now hundreds of temples announced, under construction, or operating around the world, and a temple announcement is, for the Saints of that place, the headline of the whole weekend.

How families watch — and keep studying afterwards

For most members, conference is watched at home. Families gather around a television or laptop, children sprawl with colouring pages and snacks kept specially for the weekend, and grandparents join by stream from another state. Some wards open the meetinghouse for those who prefer company or lack a good connection. Between sessions there are family meals, walks, and arguments — friendly ones — about which talk was best.

Then comes the part outsiders rarely see. Conference does not end on Sunday evening. The talks are published in full, in text, audio, and video, within days, and in the months that follow, members study them as they study scripture. In the Church's home study programme, Come, Follow Me, lessons in the months after each conference draw on the recent talks, so a family may spend a Monday evening in May working through an address first heard in April. Members describe the talks as modern counsel to be returned to — marked up, quoted in lessons, and carried into personal study — until the next conference arrives and the cycle begins again.

If you are following that study rhythm as a newcomer, Faith Map offers free reading and lessons that walk alongside Come, Follow Me and the scriptures it covers. Your faith is beautiful — and for Latter-day Saints, few weekends show its worldwide, multigenerational character more clearly than this one.