Some Thoughts Regarding the April 2018 General Conference

Hello again, everyone! I wanted to post right now with some thoughts that I have had about the April General Conference. First, while the tradition of having the Solemn Assembly Sustaining of Church Officers conducted as the first item of business in the Saturday Morning Session has held true for the last three Church Presidents (Monson, Hinckley, and Hunter), that Solemn Assembly can happen at any point designated by the new Church President, which in the case of the Solemn Assembly for Ezra Taft Benson was held during the Sunday Afternoon Session after three addresses, one from Elder Marvin J. Ashton of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and the other two from General Authority Seventies James M. Paramore (who would be called to the Presidency of the Seventy in August of the following year) and Jacob de Jager. That appears to be the one exception in recent years.

Quick sidenote here, because I tend to go off on tangents a lot. At the time of that Solemn Assembly for President Benson, whatever the reason may have been for it, the apostolic vacancy was not filled, nor would it be until the following October, when President Benson called Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin. As an additional interesting note, in addition to Elder Wirthlin, the other two apostles called by President Benson were Elders Richard G. Scott and Robert D. Hales, and the three have all died, oddly enough, in that same order, with Elder Wirthlin having passed away on December 1, 2008, Elder Scott doing so on September 22, 2015, and Elder Hales on October 1, 2017, which, as noted repeatedly in other posts, occurred between the Sunday Sessions of General Conference.

But getting back to the topic of Solemn Assemblies, since this was in the time when General Conference was held for three days, the April 1974 Solemn Assembly for President Spencer W. Kimball was held at the beginning of the Saturday Morning Session. The one peculiar anomaly about that is that two sessions of that conference were held the previous day, Harold B. Lee was also mostly an exception to the rule: although that sustaining occurred at the beginning of the first session of General Conference, that session was held Friday morning. I could go further back into history, but I wanted to get to my other points.

Since there have only been two of the last six Presidents of the Church that have had their Solemn Assembly held at other times than the beginning of the Saturday Morning Session, it is more than likely that the Solemn Assembly which will be held in April for President Nelson will be during that Saturday Morning Session.

Next, I wanted to note that Presidents Monson and Hinckley both gave their first addresses as Church president during the Priesthood Session of the General Conferences in which they were sustained, and their first address to the Church as a whole the following morning.  Presidents Hunter, Benson, Kimball, and Lee all gave their first addresses during the first session of General Conference (which was the Saturday Morning Session for the first two and the Friday Morning Session for the other two).

While there are no hard and fast rules about when a new Church President will first address Church membership, since the most recent two prophets both opted to wait to give their first addresses during the Priesthood and Sunday Morning Sessions, I think it likely that could occr again for President Nelson.

Also, there are not any set rules, as I'm sure most of you know, about who leads such Solemn Assemblies.We have had the First Counselor in the First Presidency lead them for Presidents Lee and Kimball (both of those times, that counselor was President N. Eldon Tanner), and for Presidents Benson and Hunter (both by President Gordon B. Hinckley), and President Thomas S. Monson (for President Hinckley). The one exception to the seeming precedence of the First Counselor leading out in that Solemn Assembly was for President Thomas S. Monson, for which President Dieter F. Uchtdorf led out as the prophet's Second Counselor. This may have mostly been due to the fact that President Eyring was in recovery from an ankle injury.

So, with that in mind, I feel confident that President Nelson could ask either of his counselors to lead out in April, and that President Nelson's first opportunity to speak as Church President will likely be during the Priesthood Session, with his first opportunity to speak to the entire Church membership occurring during the Sunday Morning Session (at which time he may also announce any new temple locations).

Additionally, while predicting how many addresses President Nelson might give, in addition to those of his counselors, may be hard to accomplish, it has been a long-standing custom for the Presidents of the Church to speak at both the beginning of each conference in the Saturday Morning Session and the end of each conference at the Sunday Afternoon Session. There have been some exceptions to that, such as when a new Church President is sustained in a Solemn Assembly during such conferences, or, as we saw more recently, in the last 5 General Conferences in which President Monson spoke, as his age and health did not allow him to speak in either of those sessions.

Finally, I wanted to talk a bit about how many members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles might speak to us in each of the 5 General Conference Sessions this April. As I have previously noted, during most General Conferences, we typically hear from 2 members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles during both the Saturday and Sunday Morning Sessions, with 4 others speaking Saturday Afternoon, 1 during the Priesthood Session, and the remaining 3 during the Sunday Afternoon Session.

That general pattern of speaking has been altered somewhat at times when there were two or more vacancies in the Quorum of the Twelve. Both in October 2004 (when Elders Uchtdorf and Bednar were sustained) and again in October 2015, when our three newest apostles (Elders Rasband, Stevenson, and Renlund) were sustained,, the typical patterns were slightly altered.

During both of those conferences, 2 of the Quorum members spoke during both the Saturday Morning and Sunday Afternoon Sessions, with 3 in the Saturday Afternoon Session, 1 during the Priesthood Session, and the other 4 during the Sunday Morning Session. I think we will likely see that happen again as well, which means that if this order is used, the entire two hours of the Sunday Morning Session of General Conference will be comprised of talks from 6 apostles, 4 from the Quorum of the Twelve, along with President Nelson and whichever of his counselors does not speak during the Saturday Morning Session.

I could go on further about this, but I will forebear for the moment. I hope this post has provided helpful information to at least some of you. That does it for now. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.