Thousands to converge on Salt Lake City for Mormon conference
Published: Friday, Oct. 1, 2010 12:15 a.m. MDT By Scott Taylor, Deseret News
— More than 100,000 people are expected to converge on downtown Salt Lake City this weekend to attend the 180th Semiannual Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Few, if any, new leadership callings are expected during this weekend. No vacancies exist in the First Presidency or Quorum of the Twelve — where the combined 15 men revered by Mormons as prophets, seers and revelators serve in lifelong callings — and most new calls to the Quorums of the Seventy have been sustained more recently in April conferences.
Also, three of the church’s five general auxiliary presidencies — the Primary, Sunday School and Young Men — were changed earlier this year, with the other two (Relief Society and Young Women) still within the five-year period that has been the traditional tenure of auxiliary presidencies of late.
Recent October conferences have been a time for the releasing of members of the Seventy — including emeritus status for departing members of the First Quorum of Seventy — as well as the announcing of new temples. Five temples were announced in each of the 2008 and 2009 October conferences.
Tickets are required to attend the five sessions held at the 21,000-seat Conference Center — the 10 a.m. “morning” sessions and 2 p.m. “afternoon” sessions both Saturday and Sunday and Saturday’s 6 p.m. Priesthood meeting, for male members ages 12 and older.
Security checks will be conducted at each entrance, with cameras, recording devices, weapons, food, backpacks, packages and large bags not allowed inside.
Overflow seating is available in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, North Visitors’ Center and Joseph Smith Memorial Building for all sessions and in the Conference Center Theater for the priesthood and Sunday sessions.
The Assembly Hall will serve as overflow with Spanish-language audio for all sessions.
With the exception of the Priesthood session (a closed broadcast to select LDS meetinghouses worldwide), conference proceedings are also available via TV, Internet, radio and satellite broadcasts. For availability information, see www.bonneville.info, www.lds.org/broadcast or www.byutv.org.
Public parking downtown for conference-goers is even more limited, with the ongoing City Creek construction south of Temple Square.
Utah Transit Authority is expanding its TRAX service to and from downtown Salt Lake City for conference weekend, with extra light-rail trains, extra cars and earlier service planned; however, the FrontRunner service between Salt Lake City and Ogden does not operate on Sundays. Additional information on fares and conference-weekend schedules is available at www.rideuta.com.
e-mail: taylor@desnews.com
