#eyring

There was a bit of drama this past weekend regarding which session LDS Church considers the official start of General Conference. A quick recap of what happened, in order:

At the General Women’s Meeting, Elder Uchtdorf to the meeting as the “opening session” of Conference.

At the Saturday morning session, both Elder Eyring and the Young Women’s President refer to that session as the “first session” of Conference. This has traditionally been seen as the official start of Conference.

But then—there’s a twist! In his prayer at the Priesthood session, a member of the Seventy refers to that particular meeting as the “fourth session” of Conference. If you do the math, these four sessions would include the Women’s Meeting, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, and Priesthood.

This prayer has now been edited in the official transcript of the Priesthood session. It no longer has any reference to the meeting as the “fourth” session of Conference. Interestingly, Elder Uchtdorf’s words referring to the Women’s Meeting as the opening session have not been altered.

The official statement from the Church:

"While the women’s meetings have long been an important part of General Conference week, they are not usually referred to as a session of General Conference," LDS Church spokesman Dale Jones said in a statement Friday afternoon. "Edits are routinely made to General Conference proceedings prior to publication of the official record. In this case a simple edit was made by the conference producer to reflect the usual numbering of the sessions."

This has upset some people. While I don’t particularly care which boring session of Conference is considered the FIRST boring session of Conference, the selective editing is noteworthy. If you want to scrub all mention of the idea that the Women’s Meeting might be considered the “opening ceremonies” of General Conference, why wouldn’t you delete that from the transcript of the Women’s Meeting as well? I have two theories:

1. Inconsistent editing, the result of a specific proofreader or transcriber.

2. Keeping the reference in the Women’s Meeting continues the Church’s overall strategy of flattering women with praise and telling them how very special and blessed they are, without having to actually address the issues (and complaints) surrounding the role of women in Mormonism.

I honestly believe each theory is just as likely. It could be a dick move, or it could be something someone just didn’t notice. Either way, it’s worth noting the inconsistencies between the official record of the Church and what happened live at Conference. Especially since most people won’t ever rewatch Conference again, but Ensign articles will be quoted in lessons from the pulpit to members’ homes for decades to come.

I saw a bunch of official-looking people in the MC (the commons of BYU-Idaho) and thought it was weird that they were all going around looking at stuff. They looked like a bunch of CEOs.

They were on a tour through campus apparently. I didn't get to see until later who was guiding them. I had never seen any of the University presidency in person before, but when I went to walk to the library, there they were again, on the skywalk, being guided by PRESIDENT EYRING.

Not Henry B. Eyring, but his son, who I believe is also Henry Eyring. He's like the vice president of the U in some way, but I was kinda star-struck nonetheless.