How long is priesthood session

The members of the First Presidency announced Tuesday, July 27, , that the Saturday evening session will go on at October's conference, after announcing in June that it would not happen.

Saturday evening sessions of General Conference are back on — a month after leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced they were dispensing with the traditional 6 p. The session will be part of the Oct. Previously, the Saturday evening sessions had been divided by gender, with the October meeting geared toward women and the April gathering directed at male priesthood holders.

Nelson and his counselors, Dallin H. Oaks and Henry B. Eyring , wrote. Other meetings such as Relief Society and Primary meetings were considered conferences specific to their organizations and, while held in the spring and fall to increase attendance, were not considered part of general conference. There were about 30 members in attendance, along with several friends and other interested persons.

The minutes of this meeting are available through the Joseph Smith Papers. General conference has been held every year since , with two exceptions. The first was ; no conferences were held that year, because of the exodus from Nauvoo. The second cancellation was October , because of the Asian flu epidemic. The April conference was not canceled, but it was postponed until June due to the influenza epidemic, and some conferences in the s were limited in attendance because of safety concerns and wartime restrictions on large gatherings.

The meeting was once for male priesthood holders only, then it seesawed back and forth between women and men, and now will be discontinued altogether. Its elimination raises the question: Will it increase or further diminish the number of women speaking at the four remaining sessions of the male-dominated conferences?

The two-hour Saturday evening meeting — formerly known as the priesthood session — was added to the General Conference lineup in and restricted to men and boys who hold the male-only priesthood. They need to quickly explain why. They were turned away at the door even as dozens of boys and men streamed inside to pick up last-minute passes.

Six months later, as Ordain Women members and allies were planning a second march, the church said that its priesthood session would be televised to all for the first time. Thus the women were allowed to see, but not attend the all-male session — though some did gain access to satellite sites in the fall of