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As normal, there have been talks that will be appreciated and disliked by us here. This is a generic thread to discuss general thoughts and feelings about this conference. My initial takeaway thus far, is that there have been some really good talks so far, even with some which I do not see positively.
In particular, the talk I currently am watching, by Elder Soares, is phenomenal (joining my all-time favorites) and will be one I reference often.
Elder Ballard’s talk began with the statement that he is losing his eyesight. He spoke slowly and simply. It sounded like a farewell address. It was a simple testimony, and it was touching. Old-Timer wrote:
Elder Ballard’s talk began with the statement that he is losing his eyesight. He spoke slowly and simply. It sounded like a farewell address. It was a simple testimony, and it was touching.
I did get the sense from the end of his talk that he felt like this could be his last one. At least that is how it sounded from how he was speaking.
I didn’t realize he was in his 90s. He doesn’t look it.
Elder Giraud-Carrier’s talk is wonderful. He laid it on the line, bluntly. If we lived what he just preached, we would be a much better people.
Seriously, this might be my new favorite General Conference talk ever – and that is saying a lot.
Pres. Nelson’s talk is one many here will want to avoid. The concept of “Think Celestial” is one I like, but the application of it in the talk is not the way I see the phrase. My thoughts: I love love loved Uchtdorf’s talk! By far my favorite of the conference and it’s not even close. I definitely felt the warm-fuzzies with that one.
Most talks I thought were “meh”. Pretty run-of-the-mill and did not move the needle for me one way or the other.
I disliked Pingree’s talk on truth. I thought that whole talk was pretty poor all around. My thoughts differ from Old-Timer on Giraud-Carrier’s talk. It had a good message, but his tone and spirit was grating to me.
Both Gong and Pres. Nelson’s talks were mixed bags for me. Gong was doing so well with the ‘short skirt’ story, and then his talk went downhill when he got into accepting callings. With Nelson’s, I thought his comment on addictions offending God was tone deaf. I would’ve expected better from a former medical professional. His “Think Celestial” bit felt like “Ask the missionaries” all over again.
Something else I noticed about this conference was how hurried it felt. Many speakers began rattling their talks off the second they hit the pulpit. I don’t know if they were behind schedule, nervous, or what, but it detracted from the calm mood that you would expect from GC.
Interesting. We’ve all got different ways things hit us. I thought it was one of DFU’s worst talks, even one of the worst talks of the conference. I say this for two reasons: I can envision his talk being weaponized and used against people that have left the church.
- He gave the “Come, Join with Us” talk 10 years ago. October 2013. In that talk he mentioned that people often erroneously assume that people leave the church out of a desire to sin or out of laziness. So what does DFU say in this talk… well not so much say outright but imply?
People leave the church to get out from under the rules of the church (aka, a desire to sin).
- People on the outside mistakenly believe that they are living their best life, they are not. Even mocks people a bit for believing it.
- Eventually people on the outside will fail because they’re on the outside.
- The pot-shots taken at the communities that are accepting and validating of the person that has left.
- The pot-shots taken at the person that left for imagining that they’ve found a better community.
- Your soul is empty outside the church.
- People that leave the church are miserable and could be too embarrassed to return.
- Eventually the hardships and false friends will humble them enough so they’ll come crawling back.
Now… I don’t recall him saying the word “church” in his parable. May have, maybe not, I didn’t catch the nuance. Maybe he even specifically said leaving the presence of god, not the church, and in his mind he has clear line of distinction between the church and god, meaning the talk was about leaving moral living behind and I just read leaving the church into it. Again I don’t recall the specifics.
I also concede that he could have been speaking to people that leave the church for one very specific reason and I’m reading a broad brush into his talk. If he meant it to be very targeted, he didn’t say so.
What he said and how it will be consumed are two separate things. He may have been focused on people that leave moral living behind but I fear that’s not what orthodox members will hear. Church culture is primed to believe that leaving the church behind equates to leaving moral living behind. I fear the talk will be weaponized and it’s almost a 180 from his “Come, Join with Us” talk from 10 years ago.
I felt his talk from 10 years ago was welcoming. This most recent talk didn’t feel welcoming, it felt judgmental.
nibbler wrote:Now… I don’t recall him saying the word “church” in his parable. May have, maybe not, I didn’t catch the nuance. Maybe he even specifically said leaving the presence of god, not the church, and in his mind he has clear line of distinction between the church and god, meaning the talk was about leaving moral living behind and I just read leaving the church into it. Again I don’t recall the specifics.
I also concede that he could have been speaking to people that leave the church for one very specific reason and I’m reading a broad brush into his talk. If he meant it to be very targeted, he didn’t say so.
What he said and how it will be consumed are two separate things. He may have been focused on people that leave moral living behind but I fear that’s not what orthodox members will hear. Church culture is primed to believe that leaving the church behind equates to leaving moral living behind. I fear the talk will be weaponized and it’s almost a 180 from his “Come, Join with Us” talk from 10 years ago.
I believe he did say “church” once (to my recollection). But ‘presence of God’ is the meaning I got out of it and what I assume his intention was. Perhaps my own sense of distinction between God and church led me to appreciate the message rather than feeling targeted. To me, this talk felt like a sequel to ‘Come, Join with Us’.
Though, I can see how others might not like it. The potential for members to weaponize it is real. But a lot of GC talks have that potential. As you mentioned, it comes down to how people hear it.
It will be interesting next Sunday to find out what the TBMs heard in conference. I think in addition to my usual tracking of scripture vs GA references, I’ll have to keep track of how many times I hear, “Think Celestial.” Then, when I get home, I’ll drink a shot of coffee for each one
It would be interesting to know how many times “ Covenant Path” was used in the talks. Now the new phrase will be “
Think Celestial“. I know I’m old but canned phrases annoy me.
It’s my fault. I used a monkey paw wish to rid us once and for all of the phrase covenant path but, as we all know, the monkey paw always wins in the end. Covenant path will only go away because celestial thinking will take its place. I did not watch conference. I am a member of an LDS facebook group on marriage and sexuality and one woman was distressed about “think celestial” because her husband is not a member. “Think celestial” could be so wonderful about being better to each other “love your neighbor” type teaching. It is sad if it is reduced to “follow the tribe/church.” To be fair, before I can give my opinion about GC I have to read the talks online or in the Liahona. My general feeling is, if I can find one talk out of the two days, I come out ahead & my time was worth it.
I know for sure that DFU’s talk head a chord for me.
I wonder why we don’t hear more from him?
The format of conference has changed recently. In announced ways, the Saturday evening general session, and perhaps it has changed in unannounced ways. We heard from DFU more in the past because he was once a member of the first presidency and back in those days the format was to hear from each of the apostles once per conference and to hear from members of the first presidency two or even three times per general conference. That format had DFU speaking more than once per conference. Now DFU isn’t in the first presidency, so he’s back down to one talk per conference.
I think the format has changed under Nelson. There have been multiple conferences where Oaks and Eyring only spoke once. There have been some general conferences were Nelson spoke in every session (yeah).
The current format appears to have retained some elements of the old. For instance, all apostles speak once per conference (provided they are healthy enough to do so) and apostles that aren’t in the first presidency don’t speak more than once per conference.
Roy wrote:
I did not watch conference. I am a member of an LDS facebook group on marriage and sexuality and one woman was distressed about “think celestial” because her husband is not a member. “Think celestial” could be so wonderful about being better to each other “love your neighbor” type teaching. It is sad if it is reduced to “follow the tribe/church.”
The more I think about it, the more I think that this is Nelson’s worst talk. Rather than a Christ-centered message of trying to be a good person because that’s what He taught, we got a talk that told us to constantly think about what we’re getting in the next life.
The requirement of temple sealing for getting into the highest level was mentioned more than once yesterday. I wonder how many non-member bf/gf’s are getting dumped today by their Mormon soon-to-be ex who decided to “Think Celestial”?
PazamaManX wrote:
The requirement of temple sealing for getting into the highest level was mentioned more than once yesterday.
It looks like your not the only one that noticed that trend PazamaMan.Article Title: Mormon leaders double down on gender and marriage
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