The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has recently announced the planned construction of 5 new temples. The church plans to build temples in Cordoba, Argentina; Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Rome, Italy; Philadelphia, and the greater Kansas City, Mo., area.

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Update: Oct 8:Jared made me aware of the LDS Newsroom Article which gives more definitive locations to the locations of all the new temples. I’ve updated the map accordingly, although some locations may still not be exact.

Here are a few of my notes/thoughts from the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

• Elder Wirthlin - Learn to laugh.  Leason learned from his mother: “Come what may, and love it.”
• Elder Holland -Angles are dispatched to help us in times of need.  But not all angles are from the other side of the veil.
• Gerald Causse - Little children have a great ability to learn and trust… the same qualities help open the door to the holy spirit.
• Lawrence E Corbridge - Christ offers a well of living water… He is the bread of life.  He is the only way.
• Elder Christofferson - Building a Zion. Zion is zion because of the attributes and character of its citizens.
• Elder Bednar - Council in all that we do. Prayer becomes more meaningful as you express heartfelt gratitude.

I spent a little time tonight getting the audio and text from the last General Conference linked into ScriptureCast.net. This service allows people to podcast the scripture or general conference at a custom rate. You can read more about the update on the ScriptureCast.net blog.

Priesthood session for General Conference was really good. Here are a few notes:

Elder Cook told about the fire fighting heroes in Southern California and talked about the importance of following the words of the prophet.

Bishop Burton told us about the churches humanitarian efforts. He expressed appreciation for the good Samaritans. He said that in 2007, the church responded and assisted with 170 disaster events in 50 different countries. He said, “The things which you do for others remains your legacy.”

Brother Burges from the General Young Mens Presidency asked, “Do you know who you are?” He also talked about knowing who you are in the Great Plan and as a member of the Church.

Elder Mansen of the 70 talked about young deacons and their potential. He gave an example of the Savior, and what he did at deacon age.

President Uchtdorf advises us about the dangers of being just a few degrees off in course. He told us of the power of self-direction and told us to “Be anxiously engaged in a good cause.”

President Eyring talked on many subjects, including the temple being a place to gain a fullness of glory and eternal increase. He told us to study the word of God. He said that the priesthood is the power that God, through His Son, created the worlds.

President Monson told us to ask ourselves, if we are worthy servants of the Lord. He told a story of him at a meeting where a boy was imitating his every posture. If he would cross his legs one way, the boy would do the same. President Monson said this continued until he wiggled his ears, which the boy couldn’t imitate. President Monson wiggled his big ears for us in demonstration and articulation in his story. (It was funny.) He told this story to help us understand the examples we must be for others. He also said that we should, “Determine to prepare for our time of opportunity.”

Update: To see information about October conference, see the Conference Info page on LDS.org.

The 178th Annual General Conference of the Church will be held on Saturday and Sunday, April 5-6, 2008. Speakers will include the First Presidency and other General Authorities and general officers of the Church. There will also be a General Young Women Meeting on March 29, 2008 at 6pm MDT.

The General Conference sessions will take place at:

• Saturday Morning, 10am MDT
• Saturday Afternoon, 2pm MDT
• Priesthood Session, Saturday 6pm MDT (broadcasted only to select meeting houses)
• Sunday Morning, 10am MDT
• Sunday Afternoon, 2pm MDT

Sessions last two hours each, and can be viewed at select meeting houses, select TV, radio and satellite stations, or on the Internet. Video streams are available at LDS.org, BYU-TV, and audio available at LDS.org and on KSL Radio.

Special highlights of this General Conference will most likely include the sustaining of President Monson as President of the Church, and the calling and sustaining of a new apostle.

Online text transcripts in English will be available the Thursday after General Conference, with additional materials in English and other languages being made available at later dates.

Recently The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had their fall General Conference, and they have just released the audio files of the various talks given on their website. The audio files are a great way to review General Conference material.

I’ve been working on a site called ScriptureCast.net which can create podcasts of the scriptures at custom rates. I’ve recently added the recent General Conference to the list of sources available for podcasting. Now you can subscribe to a custom podcast which feeds the talks to you at (almost) whatever rate you want.

I’ve just subscribed to a feed which starts with the Saturday morning session, and will give me a custom rate of talks so that I’ll finish the last talk just before the next General Conference in April, 2008. This way, I can study the conference talks all year round.

Update April 2008. I plan on putting the April 2008 LDS General Conference talks up on ScriptureCast.net just as soon as the individual talks are made available in MP3 format.

This morning the LDS church launched a new version of their website at LDS.org. I wanted to send out a special congratulations to all those who worked hard on the new design. I know a little bit of what it is like to launch a big website, and it is a great experience (assuming nothing goes wrong).

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President Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke at BYU today at the weekly devotional. Below are some of my notes from his talk:

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A couple of weeks ago, my family and I visited Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah. One of the things we visited was the North Visitor’s Center. The basement of the visitor’s center features displays about various biblical and latter-day prophets. Their displays are pretty good. Below you will see a photo of me and a display about Isaiah. I was trying to get Isaiah to sign an autograph book, but he just wasn’t interested in moving.

Joel Dehlin, the Chief Information Officer of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has his own blog at http://www.ldscio.org. In his first post, he explains that he left work at Microsoft for the CIO position at the Church, including some funny reactions he got from others.

I really like being able to read the blogs of various people at the Church. It really provides good insight into the gobalization of the Church and the direction it is headed.