Behind the scenes of women’s conference: Enter to learn, go forth to serve

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The BYU women’s conference is the largest two-day gathering of LDS women anywhere in the entire world where participants flock to perform service and hear insights on the gospel, home and family, womanhood and sisterhood from more than 200 presenters. The hustle and bustle happening behind the scenes of the large event is accompanied by a sweet spirit instead of stressful tension.

Elliott Miller
(Left to right) Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson, Sister Rosemary M. Wixom and Sister Linda K. Burton greet sisters from the Marriott Center at Women’s Conference 2014. (Elliott Miller)

The cubicles in the Harman Building, which make up the women’s conference office, were far from a stand-still on Tuesday, just two days before the conference started. Preparing a conference for 14,500 sisters means everything must be done quickly, precisely and with an unbelievable amount of kindness.

The program administrator of Women’s Conference, Jennefer Johnson; her right-hand woman, Michelle Moore; and the brave woman in charge of the 21 service projects, Lorelie Sander, paused in their preparation for a few minutes to explain what goes into the event.

Johnson said the co-sponsorship between BYU and the Relief Society is a big reason for the conference’s success, because the Relief Society plays a large role in the way the program is built and which sessions are offered. She said the Young Women Presidency and the Primary Presidency are also involved and support the women’s conference efforts. “We try to align our goals with theirs, and we’re able to glean from their wisdom, as well as from Sandra Rogers, who is the vice president here on campus and our chair,” Johnson said.

Rogers meets with a committee in the fall to decide on the theme. This year’s theme, “… my soul delighteth in the covenants of the Lord …” is from 2 Nephi 11:5. Johnson said the process of choosing the theme with the help of board members from the Relief Society, Primary and Young Women organizations is amazing. “We only meet for a few short weeks, and for a few hours each week, and by the end of two to three weeks everybody has come to love the same scripture, the same message,” Johnson said.

Maddi Dayton
The instant choir performs at the Thursday morning general session of Women’s Conference 2014. (Maddi Dayton)

According to Sander, the process of selecting the 21 campus service projects is thorough.

A subcommittee of eight women who plan the service portion of women’s conference begin meeting in the fall. “The ladies visit almost 100 different local agencies — places like hospitals, women shelters, crisis nurseries, police departments, all kinds of homeless shelters and food banks, and they ask them, ‘What are your greatest needs?’ and they bring that information back, and we discuss and decide what projects we’re going to do at women’s conference based on what the greatest needs of the community are,” Sander said.

The service projects focus on things that can be handmade, including projects like crocheted edge burp clothes, fleece blankets, greeting cards and more. The subcommittee collects information about needs in October and in January assigns project leaders, who do things ahead of the conference to make the kits easier to assemble at the actual event.

Last year’s women’s conference partnered with the Church Humanitarian Department and with an organization called Feeding Children Everywhere for the evening of service. According to the Utah Food Bank, one in five Utah kids are unsure where their next meal will come from. The organizations put together meal kits kids could pick up at the end of their day at school to ensure they had a proper meal. “Last year in those three hours, we put together 120,000 meal kits. This year we’re doing the same project, and our goal is 180,000 kits in the same amount of time,” Sander said.

Maddi Dayton
Women of all ages gather together at Brigham Young University for the annual 2014 Women’s Conference. (Maddi Dayton)

Sander said even though everyone is doing what seems to be one little part, cumulatively the women are making a huge impact. “It’s seriously miraculous how much can be accomplished when good women just get together and serve,” she said.

Moore said one of the purposes behind the service projects is connected to Bonnie L. Oscarson’s talk “First Observe, Then Serve.” “We do the service because we want the sisters to be able to see that there are needs in their community, just like the needs we’re trying to fill at the conference, and to go home and seek out those needs in their own community,” Moore said.

Project tutorials with instructions, patterns and materials needed for the service projects done at the conference can be found on the women’s conference website under the Service tab. The goal is to use the tutorials to solve the needs of the attendees’ own communities.

Participants will hear from keynote speakers in each general session held in the Marriott Center. LDS.org will stream a general session of women’s conference for the first time. The last general session, with Elder Ballard, will be streamed at 3:45 p.m. on Friday for anyone unable to attend the conference. Transcripts of the sessions will be available on the women’s conference website, and recordings of the general sessions will be shown on BYUtv later in the summer. Ongoing coverage can also be found throughout the week at universe.byu.edu.

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