October 2019 General Conference Themes and Reactions

Another general conference in the books, and it was a good one.

The Changes:

• Ward YM presidencies discontinued
• Quorum presidencies - Bishop over Priests, 1st Counselor over Teachers, 2nd Counselor over Deacons
• Relief Society and YW leaders may be assigned to counsel with individuals in their organizations
• YW Presidents report directly to the bishop
• A high councilman will be the Stake YM President
• BYC replaced with a Ward Youth Council
• "Mutual" name retired, replaced by YW activities, YM activities, youth activities
• "Auxiliaries" changed to "Organizations"
• Completely new YW Theme
• New organizational structure for YW meetings, dependent on unit's needs
• Discontinuation of Beehive, Mia Maid, and Laurel labels
• 8 new temples announced (once all are completed, the total will be 217)
• New wording to temple interview questions
• Special Bicentennial First Vision General Conference April 2020

Did I catch them all??

Themes I picked up from October 2019 conference:

• Joy
• Personal revelation
• Jesus Christ - He's mentioned a lot, of course, but in particular (Holland, Aliaud, Harkness)
• Covenants and Holiness 

I expect I'll pull out these themes over the next 6 months as we study this conference.

Other thoughts:

At least two speakers (D. Todd Christofferson & Neil L. Anderson) talked about individuals with paralysis.  This stood out to me, because one of our twins may deal with some paralysis.  It reminded me that the year that our son, Thomas, died, there were almost 10 talks that had to do with death, some specifically the death of an infant/child.  So when I heard the second mention near the end of conference, it perked my ears up as if to say - there may be a message for me in these talks, and I'll have to look through them more closely.

I felt that President Nelson in his talk during the Women's Session was the clearest, most straight-forward of anyone that I've heard speak about women and the priesthood.  When we are set apart, we are given priesthood authority.  When we are endowed, we are endowed with priesthood power.  I feel like this has been hinted at before, but President Nelson spoke as clear as he could be.

2 individuals quoted the "Come & see, come & help, come & stay"

I want to especially look back over President Eyring's Sunday morning talk.