Reflections on General Conference | Episode 411

The 195th Semiannual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints looked much like any other in recent years.

There were talks by apostles and general authority Seventies, along with three women, punctuated by music by The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square and other Utah choirs.

But it might be remembered mostly for what didn’t happen.

It was presided over by the Dallin Oaks-led Quorum of the Twelve Apostles rather than by a church president and a reconstituted First Presidency.

That’s because President Russell M. Nelson died just a week before the two-day meetings and, by tradition, the three-man presidency is not reorganized until after the previous president’s funeral.

On top of that Oaks broke with conference tradition and announced no new temples. Nelson’s presumed successor said that Nelson “loved to announce new temples at the conclusion of each General Conference, and we all rejoiced with him.” Not this time, Oaks said. Due to the “large number of temples now in the very earliest phases of planning and construction, it is appropriate that we slow down the announcement of new temples.”

On this week’s show, Emily Jensen, web editor for Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and Patrick Mason, chair of Mormon history and culture at Utah State University, discuss what did — and didn’t — happen at the just-completed meeting, plus which speakers were standouts, and what an Oaks’ presidency might look like.