Over the coming weekends millions of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints around the world will have participated in two days of listening to talks from Church leaders and music from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
With interpreters translating the conference into 86 languages, the Church now delivers its message, via satellite, to 12.5 million members in over 160 countries and territories. There will be over 400,000 members able to watch the conference from venues across the Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.
With his well-known humor and wit, President Gordon B. Hinckley, age 96, the world wide head of the Church, said in his Sunday morning address, "The wind is blowing, and I feel like the last leaf on the tree. Actually my health is quite good, despite all the rumors to the contrary. Skillful doctors and nurses keep me on the right track, and some of you may go before I do."
This year' s conference was a historic one in that the Church rededicated the Salt Lake Tabernacle on Temple Square. The building had been closed for two years undergoing a seismic upgrade and restoration.
New leaders were announced, including five new general authorities, all from countries outside of the United States. Also announced today were the callings of fourty six new Area Seventies who give part-time voluntary Church service within their assigned geographic areas and support area presidencies in international areas. Included in the calls as Area Seventies were men from around the world including; Peter F. Meurs, 50, Kingsley Australia; Terence M. Vinson, 56, Kenthurst, Australia and Taniela B. Wakolo, 39, Suva, Fiji.
Releases to be effective on 1 May 2007 were announced for twenty eight Area Seventies including John R. Gibson, from Sydney Australia, Beaver T. Ho Ching, from American Samoa and Barry Lee from Adelaide South Australia.
The world' s oldest women' s organisation, the Relief Society, announced a new presidency. Julie B. Beck now serves as the general Relief Society president, with Silvia H. Allred and Barbara Thompson as her counselors. The Relief Society is the Church' s women' s organization. The press conference which introduced the new presidency was held on Saturday afternoon and is now available to watch. Select "Video" in the multimedia book associated with this news release.
The Young Women general presidency also changed. Elaine S. Dalton was assigned as first counselor and Mary N. Cook was assigned to be the second counselor. There was no change to the president. The Young Women organization oversees the Church' s program for teenage girls.
For the first time, The World Report, a 30-minute news program from the Church was released on the Web. Previously the program could only be viewed on the Church' s satellite system between conference sessions. Now the news program, which highlights significant Church events during the six months prior to conference, will be on the Newsroom Web site for the public to view. The program will be archived and can be viewed at any time.
The Church' s next worldwide conference will be in October 2007. Later this week, all conference talks will be posted on www.lds.org.
