Mormons adopt modifications to major gatherings

SALT LAKE CITY — The Mormon church is changing the way it holds future general conferences.

Changes announced Friday by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints call for Mormons to hold the general priesthood and the general women’s sessions only once a year, with the all-male priesthood session being in April and the women’s session being in October.

The changes will take effect in April 2018. The church says in a letter to local church leaders that shortening the general conference sessions will help simplify the work of the church and reduce demands on its leaders and members.

Kathryn Skaggs, founder of the Mormon Women Stand, a Facebook group with 52,000 members, said she expects the change “will elevate the women’s session in the minds of everyone in the church.”

Salt Lake City’s Naomi Watkins, co-founder of Aspiring Mormon Women, a Facebook discussion forum, said she’s a fan of fewer meetings and thinks the change will make the women’s session more equivalent to the priesthood session.

“But given there have been only one to two female speakers in the general sessions in the recent past,” Watkins said, “I hope that this change means more women will be speaking at these general sessions, too, and that this change doesn’t result in fewer female speakers overall.”