What happened to all the big changes Latter-day Saints were expecting at general conference?

April 9, 2019

What happened to the expected changes?

The April and October 2018 general conferences of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints saw  dramatic changes announced.  In April, they disbanded the high priests group at the ward level and merged it with the elders quorum.  They discontinued home teaching and visiting teaching and introduced a new program of ministering.  In October they reduced the Sunday meeting schedule from three hours to two and introduced a new program of gospel study in the home.  In the closing session, President Russell M. Nelson announced the construction of twelve new temples—the largest number ever announced on the same day.

Less than a month later, on November 1, 2018, President Nelson tweeted:   

We are witnesses to the process of restoration. If you think the Church is fully restored, you’re just seeing the beginning. There’s much more to come. Wait until next year, and then the next year. Eat your vitamins, get your rest. It’s going to be exciting!   

Perhaps it was natural that members suppose that meant that there would be more exciting news at the   April 2019 conference.  When President Nelson announced nothing to rival the announcements of April and October 2018, some members could have felt disappointed—even short-changed.  This post is for them.

Most changes and newsworthy items are not announced at conference

In this day of instant communication throughout the world, there is no need to wait until a general conference to introduce changes.  And remarkable developments occurred between the October 2018 and the April 2019 conferences.   They included but were not limited to the following:

  • October 11, 2018: Elders quorum presidencies will now be sustained in sacrament meeting rather than in the quorum meeting.

  • November 16, 2018: Beginning on January 2, 2019, all young missionary candidates (for either full-time or Church service missions) will use the online recommendation process. Under the direction of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, each prospective missionary who qualifies will receive a call that best suits him or her.

  • December 14, 2018: The Church announced age changes for youth progression and ordination.  Deacons may now be ordained at age 11 in January of the year they will turn twelve.  Eleven-year-old young women will be eligible in January for a limited use temple recommend.  Older young men and young women will similarly progress to the next quorum or class in January of the year they turn fourteen or sixteen.

 

  • January 1, 2019: We began the previously announced two-hour block, reducing sacrament meeting to one hour.  During the second hour we alternated between Sunday School on first and third Sundays and Priesthood meeting and Relief Society on second and fourth Sundays.  Church members then had an extra hour to study the scriptures and the Come, Follow Me materials at home. 

  • February 15, 2019: Missionaries are authorized to communicate with their families each week on preparation day via text messages, online messaging, phone calls, and video chat in addition to letters and emails.

  • February 27, 2019: Elder David A. Bednar presented a two-million-dollar donation from the Church to Michael Moore, CEO of the International African American Museum, to be built in Charleston, South Carolina.  And Martin Luther King III, the son of Dr. Martin Luther King, was a featured speaker at this year’s Rootstech event in Salt Lake City, sponsored by Family Search International.
Elder David A. Bednar, Michael B. Moore, and Martin Luther King III

 

  • March 1, 2019: The Church announced temple policy adjustments, eliminating the calling of veil worker and allowing women with dependent children and members of bishoprics and stake presidencies to be called as ordinance workers where circumstances permit.

  • March 5, 2019: The Church announced the change of name of many of its global communication channels to better align with the full name of the Church.  Thus:

 

  • March 22, 2019: Beginning in 2020, the course of study for seminary will shift to an annual calendar. Classes will study the same book of scripture used for the “Come, Follow Me” curriculum. This is designed to enhance the home-centered, Church-supported approach to gospel study.

  • March 10-12, 2019: President Nelson dedicated the Rome Temple.  Significant events associated with that dedication included:
    • President Nelson’s and President Ballard’s meeting with Pope Francis, the first such meeting between a president of the Church and a Catholic pope.

  • The presence at the dedication of all members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve, the first time in this dispensation that all fifteen had been together outside of the United States.

  • April 4, 2019: President Dallin H. Oaks announced:  
    • Children of parents who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender may now be blessed as infants and baptized in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints without First Presidency approval.
    • In addition, the Church will no longer characterize same-gender marriage by a Church member as “apostasy” for purposes of Church discipline, although it is still considered “a serious transgression.”

 

  • April 4, 2019: The Church introduced the concept of a ward or branch temple and family history plan and encouraged the holding of a regular coordination meeting to promote temple and family work at the local unit level.

If all of this had been announced at a general conference, members would have considered it spectacular.  But upon reflection, most would agree it was great that they didn’t have to wait until April 6 or 7, 2019 for these important adjustments to occur.  It is hard to argue that President Nelson’s November tweet that “It is going to be exciting” hasn’t already been true.

 

Significant news really was announced at the April 2019 conference

As noted, many of the most exciting developments of the last six months occurred between the end of the October conference and the beginning of the April 2019 sessions.  No doubt there will be many others in the ensuing six months.  But there was exciting news at the April 2019 conference as well.  This included:

  • The announced construction of eight additional temples, six of them outside the U.S. At most conferences, we would have considered it sensational for so many new temples to be announced.  It is only by comparison with the twelve announced in October that April’s list appears smaller.  But to have twenty new temples announced in just over six months’ time is simply breath-taking.   

 

  • The projected renovation and subsequent rededication of all four pioneer era temples in Utah.

  • The call of ten new general authority seventies, an unusually large number to be called at the same time.

  • The call of the first African-American general authority, Elder Peter Johnson.
  • The call of fifty-five new area seventies, with the release of only seven, for a net gain of forty-eight—a very significant increase.
  • The sustaining of a new general Sunday School presidency.

Again, in an earlier age, no one would have considered the April 2019 conference to be anything but newsworthy.  And when viewed along with the news from the preceding six months, clearly the pace of progress is unabated. 

 

The most significant changes from the April 2019 conference

But those who listenedd to and who will reread the talks given at the recent general conference will understand that the most important changes related to conference have little to do with what the Church itself is doing.  Rather, they relate to what Church members will do with the messages given.  The scriptures are clear that each of us needs to have a “mighty change of heart,” through which we are “born again.”  Through that process, we receive and live by the Holy Ghost and become in significant ways new creatures.  We lose every desire for sin and want only to do good continually.  As President Nelson taught:

When we choose to repent, we choose to change! We allow the Savior to transform us into the best version of ourselves. We choose to grow spiritually and receive joy—the joy of redemption in Him. When we choose to repent, we choose to become more like Jesus Christ!

Speakers at conference made it clear that the intent of the new two-hour Sunday curriculum is not to give members an additional hour of leisure on Sunday afternoons.  Rather it is to promote gospel study and gospel living in the home.  It is obvious that Sunday School, meeting for a total of eighteen hours a year, can’t begin to teach members all they need to know about the content of the New Testament, or the Book of Mormon.  At best it becomes a reporting session, where we share tidbits with each other about what we found exciting in our individual home study and from where we return to our homes intent on digging even more deeply into the scriptures and the Come Follow Me manual. 

Similarly, listening to ten hours of conference talks is unlikely by itself to change anyone.  But if we will go back and review the talks, underline points of significance to us, and ponder their application, we can grow, little by little, into all the Lord desires us to be.  So, the real question is much less, “What big changes were announced in conference?”  Rather it is, “What big changes will I make as a result of conference?”  We have six months to answer that question until the next opportunity comes for another spiritual shot in the arm.