Ryan Byrd’s Ramblings

Well, it’s that time of the year again, where LDS members gather en mass in downtown Salt Lake and at church-houses everywhere. Today’s meeting marked the first LDS general (read “world”) conference since the passing of its beloved president Gordon B. Hinckley. Whenever a church president dies, the first session of the next conference is referred to as a solemn assembly and during that assembly, the church members vote to sustain the new leadership. It’s quite the impressive sight to watch as the congregation stands in groups and pledges support in unison.

Random Thoughts: Somehow we got seats just six rows back from the front, so our view of the proceedings was fantastic. So, too, were the acoustics– the choir sounded majestic. One of the speakers, Kenneth Johnson, evidently from the UK (which reminds me of my new year’s resolution to develop a convincing English accent…), talked about the importance of the family. They must have cleared out all the flowers from the Garden of Eden and brought them into the building to garnish the stand and podium. The lights behind the large organ pipes change from orange to blue to signify the conference is about to begin. There are a series of three robotic cameras which raise and pivot around fluidly to capture everything on video for the global television transmission. Immediately in front of us were two attractive French young women accompanied by an energetic American guy; it was my greatest love with my greatest hate; beautiful French juxtaposed with a boorish, butchering of Franglais. Did I speak with the women? Yes. Did they find my Swiss intoned French simply delightful? Of course.