Salt Lake Tribune guest columnist Ardis E. Parshall looks at past conferences and gatherings of Latter-days Saints outside of Utah.
From New Zealand to Alabama, Germany to New York, members and leaders went to great lengths and distances to sing, dance, eat, pray, play, preach, learn, listen, testify and worship — together.
The first Hui Tau was held in 1885, when Maori and English Saints from 20 small congregations gathered to listen to preaching and prayers by missionaries.
The 16 elders working in Arkansas in 1897 also gathered on rude benches in the woods for their private sessions of conference at which assignments were made and instructions given. That conference, held in January, benefited from a roaring bonfire. Public preaching meetings, held over the course of three days, took place in the schoolhouse by courtesy of the non-Latter-day Saints in the town of Headley, about 100 of whom attended each session.
For three days during September, the elders gathered in conference on the grounds of the old Joseph Smith farm, and held testimony and commemorative events on the very sites where those events had occurred. These were no ordinary preaching meetings, either, with elders called at random to give typical missionary sermons. Roberts instead had assigned specific subjects to specific missionaries, expecting his elders to be fully prepared to support the themes of the meetings.
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