My first general conference

I remember the first time I attended a general conference in the Salt Lake Tabernacle. It was the April 1966 general conference. I had watched conference sessions on television at home in Idaho, but this was the first time I had attended in person. My older brother Jerry and I had come to Salt Lake for the occasion. I was sixteen years old, a junior in high school.

Moments before the beginning of the Saturday morning session, President David O. McKay entered the rather noisy Tabernacle. In a moment a solemn hush filled the air as the thousands of gathered Saints rose in deepest respect to their prophet-leader. Tears of joy and gratitude gathered in my eyes as the Spirit bore force­ful witness that for the first time in my life I was standing in the pre­sence of a Prophet of God.

The next morning, Easter Sunday, dawned early upon us as we crowded into the historic conference site. At the concluding session that afternoon, President McKay delivered his own final address and left his blessing upon the Church. He was advanced in age, and it proved to be the last sermon he ever personally gave in a general conference. Once again the moment was thrilling.

As he finished, the mighty organ and choir joined together in "The Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah. As is the tradition with this Easter anthem, the congre­ga­tion stood. After the last powerful strains had filled the air, the choir softly and reverently intoned President McKay's favorite hymn:

I need thee every hour,
Most gracious Lord;
No tender voice like thine
Can peace afford.
I need thee; O I need thee;
Every hour I need thee!
O bless me now, my Savior;
I come unto thee!

I doubt there was a dry eye or an untouched soul in the entire building.

The two of us, my brother and I, stayed in Salt Lake the following day to do genealogical research. During the afternoon I prevailed upon Jerry to take me to the Church Administration Building to be intro­duced to his mis­sion pre­si­dent, Elder Thomas S. Monson, now a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. In those days you could still just walk into the building. Elder Monson was not in his office.

Feeling increasingly more confi­dent, we walked into Elder Harold B. Lee's office to look at his wall genealogy chart. We wondered if Brother Lee's family was related to Grand­ma Batt, who was a Lee before she married Grandpa. Elder Lee was also out of the office that after­noon, but his sec­retary kindly showed us the chart. Nothing seemed to match.

Then we waxed fully bold as we decided to visit President Joseph Fielding Smith, then president of the Twelve, and his good wife, Jessie Evans Smith, in their Eagle Gate apartment. I cannot believe we had the nerve. What an absolutely audacious thing to do!

When we knocked, Pre­si­dent Smith came to the door and graciously in­vited us in. The Smiths had been watching the evening news when we arrived but turned it off im­mediately to chat with us for some twenty minutes. I remember little of what tran­spired, but admittedly I left walking six inches off the ground. Now I appreciated this chief Apostle and great gospel scholar in a warm, new light. Four years later, following the death of President McKay, President Smith became the tenth President of the Church.