What’s New for General Conference?

Conference what's new
Check out five simple innovations you can expect that are associated with the upcoming general conference October 2–3.© 2021 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.

Receiving messages focused on Jesus Christ and His gospel of peace and hope is easier with these innovations associated with the upcoming General conference on October 2–3.

1. Refocused Saturday Evening Session

The Saturday evening session this conference is for everyone. The evening session, which won’t have a specific theme or be intended for any particular audience, allows “for more gospel topics to be taught and permit more general leaders to address the conference,” the First Presidency wrote.

2. New YouTube Live Streaming Location

Beginning with this conference, the Church is moving all YouTube general conference live streaming to a new dedicated General Conference YouTube channel. This conference-specific channel houses over 50 years of conference archives and makes finding and sharing conference videos easier. Simply go to YouTube.com and search for “general conference.”

3. Conference Highlight Videos

The Church recently started publishing short video segments of Apostles’ conference talks on the General Conference YouTube channel to extend the reach of these messages. These segments contain a portion of the Apostles’ conference messages, enhanced with background music and visual depictions of Jesus Christ and modern-day followers.

“We hope these powerful short video segments of conference talks by the First Presidency and members of the Twelve on the General Conference YouTube channel will be enjoyed and shared,” said Elder Randy D. Funk, a General Authority Seventy who advises on Church publishing efforts. “They serve as a helpful reminder of the teachings of the First Presidency and the Twelve, which may inspire us to study their full messages or simply prompt us to share them with a friend.”

Twenty segment videos are now available in the General Conference Segments playlist.

To be notified each time a new segment and latest conference videos are published, click on the Subscribe button, then click on the bell icon and select the “All” notification setting.

4. Conference Notes

This note-taking feature in the Gospel Library has been available in previous conferences, but it’s worth mentioning again. Conference notes is a way to record questions before and impressions during conference sessions right in the Gospel Library.

The Gospel Library now contains the October 2021 general conference publication that has a chapter already set up for each session. This means that before conference even begins, you can record the questions you are seeking answers for as notes. These notes will be saved for accessing and answering during the live conference sessions, available for later searches, and retained right next to the published conference audio and video session recordings when they are added a few days after conference.

“Many Latter-day Saints are used to writing their questions, answers and impressions in a conference journal or notebook,” said Rob Jex, the product manager of the Gospel Library app. “We are simply providing Gospel Library users with a similar digital experience, so they can easily access their inspiration from their phones for years to come.”