Notes on the last session of General Conference

I loved the talks in the final session of General Conference.

*

I loved Elder Gary Stevenson’s remarks.  I was somewhat acquainted with Elder Stevenson prior to his call as a General Authority and even before his call to serve as president of the Japan Nagoya Mission.  (He once gave a tour of the ICON Health & Fitness manufacturing facility — he was the company’s chief operating officer — to me and a colleague.)  When one of my sons was called to serve in the Japan Nagoya Mission, I cautioned him, half humorously, “Please don’t let your mission president down.  I know him!”  In fact, I spent a few minutes with Elder and Sister Stevenson in the Church Administration Building on the day that Elder Stevenson was called as a General Authority.  I was there for a committee meeting.  It was just prior to April 2008 General Conference.  He had already served as a mission president, and the timing was, umm, suspicious.  Ominous, maybe.  We chatted until Elder M. Russell Ballard came out and invited the Stevensons to join him in his office.  I called my son that evening, telling him to be sure to watch Conference.  “Your mission president is toast,” I said.  Then, in October 2015, when Elder Stevenson was announced as a new member of the Twelve, I again called my son, who had been predicting for years — even in letters from Japan — that his mission president would someday become an apostle.  “I told you so,” he said, simply.

I was touched by Elder Stevenson’s accounts of guidance and comfort from the Holy Spirit.  I have, myself, had to rely more times than I would have liked, in times of deep personal loss over the past decade and a half, on that comfort.

*

I got a real kick out of Elder Joaquin Costa’s candid account of his own conversion.  I hope that many investigators will profit from his story.

*

I very much liked Elder D. Todd Christofferson’s talk, and I liked his citation of this excellent article:  “Hey progressive elites!  It’s time to preach what you practice.”  I strongly recommend a reading of the article.

*

I also very much appreciated Elder Quentin L. Cook’s closing remarks.

*

Okay.  So I liked all of the speeches.  There weren’t any that I didn’t like.

*

Are you aware that there are places online where embittered critics of the Church obsessively comment on General Conference, mocking the speeches and the speakers, and looking for evidence of the general stupidity and the defective personalities of faithful members?  (Lucky you, if you’re not.)  The cynicism is, sometimes, utterly breathtaking.  It’s a very weird phenomenon, and, from my perspective, it’s not only remarkably ugly but deeply sad.  It is, moreover, a striking illustration of 1 Nephi 8:26-28 and an answer to the question posed in Alma 14:21.