General Conference

This weekend is General Conference weekend. Twice a year, the general authorities of the church hold this conference, which consists of 5 sessions total. 2 two hour general sessions on Saturday, 1 two hour priesthood session on Saturday night and finally 2 more two hour sessions on Sunday. Except for the priesthood session (which is only available on closed-circuit broadcast) all of the sessions are public and transmitted all over the world so that members of the church world wide can listen to the general authorities of the church speak.

I want to talk just a little about the priesthood session that was held last night.
First, let me say that I've always been a fan of the humanitarian aid fund that the LDS church has. I've always known that it does a lot of good and that it has less overhead than any other charity of its nature (at least of that size) so when you give to it, you know the money will go directly to helping those in need and not to pay for any overhead.

But, what I did not realize was the extent of the reach of that program, which Bishop Burton spoke about last night and provided some very interesting numbers.

He talked about different events, such as earth quakes, floods, fires, etc and how many people in how many different countries had been assisted in 2007. In all, the church responded to 176 different events in 52 different countries during that year alone. On top of that, the church also assisted with immunizations, donated wheel chairs and other such activities to help those in need as well. In all, 3.9 million people in 85 countries where assisted last year by the humanitarian aid fund of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Bishop Burton then went on to say that things that we do for ourselves are quickly forgotten, but that things that we do for others ends up being our legacy.

I've read different things by various bloggers who do not understand the nature of the church. One said that "Mormons are just as crazy as Scientologists", another claimed that Joseph Smith wrote the book of Mormon (he didn't, he translated it) and yet another called the church a cult, full of secrecy and mistrust of outsiders. If you ever see LDS General Conference in your local programming (if you have cable or satellite, you likely have it for certain, not sure about standard channels in various places), please tune in, if only briefly. There will be no strings attached and you can learn first had the kinds of things that are preached to the members of the church and see our leadership firsthand.

I'll post more thoughts on general conference after today's two sessions, but my message to anyone I'm able to reach with this is to please learn the facts firsthand (as opposed to your co-worker's cousin's friend's fiance says...) and then make up your own minds from there.

Listen to the news and to Hollywood if you must (but let's be honest, how often to they get everything that they report correct?) but remember that you can always go to www.mormon.org and learn first-hand what the church is really all about. And visiting the site will not trigger some trace to send missionaries to your home.

I'll write more later.