By Ruth Busbee
Most people don”t enjoy looking at their alarm clock and reading 5:30 a.m., but there are some dedicated people who were at Temple Square at that time for a chance to attend the Sunday morning session of Conference.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints discontinued issuing stand-by tickets, so there are two choices in trying to attend conference; either have a general admission ticket or wait in line.
Katherine Snodgrass from San Diego, Calif., arrived in the stand by line at 5:30 a.m. She was the first person to arrive in this line. Katherine”s desire to attend conference was so great that she took some radical measures.
“I snuck out and left my husband sleeping. I called him from here at 6 a.m.,” said Katherine.
Her Husband, Nick, didn”t mind the wake-up call. He is just as anxious as Katherine to attend conference. Katherine and Nick came to conference without tickets. Nick is a recent convert of one year and he and his wife have never attended conference.
” We thought we were going to have tickets but then last minute it didn”t end up happening,” said Nick.
The Snodgrasses aren”t sure how conference will compare with watching it on TV.
“I really don”t know what to expect. I hear different things, I hear people say it doesn”t matter if you watch it on TV then it”s the same thing as watching it here and then I hear people say it”s totally different,” said Katherine. “My family came yesterday and my mom said she didn”t think it would be that different, but it was.”
Chip Cannon, a resident of Denver, Colo. joined the line at 5:45 a.m with his family. Chip was thankful that stand-by tickets will no longer be issued because of the hassle they created.
“We quit coming to the last conferences because it was too much of a trouble. Once we knew they didn”t have stand by tickets we realized if you wanted to get here at 4 a.m., you could get here at 4 a.m. you could get in.”
Cannon, who attended all three Saturday sessions, wants to attend conference to be spiritually uplifted.
” We”re here to sit at the feet of the prophets and apostles,” said Cannon.
The other option to get into conference is to have a general admission ticket, issued by stake presidents and other authorities.
Favio Flores de Cunba Bierrenbach, a Brazilian Judge is in Utah for the first time. He is here to address BYU law students on Tuesday and received his ticket from a coordinator at BYU. Birrenbach came to conference to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir although he is not L.D.S.
“I have many of their records back home,” said Bierrenbach.
Joy Crowther, from Anaheim California had attended “Light of the World” during the Olympics but had never attended conference. She was able to get a ticket through her stake president in California.
“I grew up in Utah but never went to conference, they would tell us to stay home,” she said.
