Easter vs. General Conference

I thought I’d go and do something religious this weekend.

What, you may ask?

I thought I’d watch General Conference. All the regular sessions I can watch from my computer, that is (which means, unfortunately, no Priesthood session. However, I get the strange sense that it focused around the need to do home teaching…)

One reason is…I like to see what the prophet and general authorities are going to emphasize this time around. General Conference gives me my snapshot of official Mormonism outside of all the heathen/liberal interpretations of the bloggernacleites (no offense, bloggernacleites!) And plus, if things go well, tomorrow, there should be a very interesting surprise at the Mormon Expression podcast relating to General Conference.

…if you’re up on things, you should know that there are a few other religious things going on this time of year. Passover. And Easter.

And isn’t it so interesting how this year, it just turns out that General Conference lands on Easter? On this page, some Catholics discuss their inferences from Easter being “pushed out” by other events.

Perhaps I was just unusually delinquent growing up, but it seems to me that Mormons aren’t exactly as keen on Easter as non-LDS Christians. That isn’t to say Mormons don’t care about it — after all, I remember several Easter Sunday programs devoted especially to this time…but it seems to me that much of the hubbub *around* Easter is foreign to Mormonism.

I mean, when I was growing up, hearing about others’ celebration of Lent was interesting, but definitely foreign.

Holy Week? Nope, couldn’t even tell you what any of them were other than Good Friday, and couldn’t tell you what any of them meant.

I guess this isn’t really just a Mormon thing. After all, it seems like this whole extended Easter treatment is really celebrated among Catholic and near-Catholic types of denominations (e.g., Episcopalianism, Orthodoxy, etc.,) Maybe I just happen to know a lot more Catholics these days, and this is why the extended Easter is more visible to me?

Still though, I find it interesting how the focus on conference is quite different indeed. So far, I’ve heard talks about families, mothers, families, and their relationship with children. About the evils of pornography. The necessity of reading the scripture and sharing testimonies (especially with sons and daughters). But not much mention of Easter. It’s like we’re in a different world…

Fortunately, at least  some are covering Easter from LDS perspectives.

UPDATE: This morning’s conference session proved to be totally and Easter-centric. Different perspectives — yet all Christ-centric — from each of the speakers. I think Uchtdorf’s was a real highlight, but I personally feel like a few of the other speakers fell into easy (false) stereotypes and tropes in characterizing the disaffected.