Sixteen Small Stones &#187; video

Elder Wilford W. Andersen

Julie B. Beck

Bishop Keith B. McMullin

Saturday Afternoon 1st Hour

Saturday Afternoon Session MP3s

Saturday Afternoon 2nd Hour

Complete Saturday Afternoon Session

Presented by Robert W. Cantwell

Presented by Brook P. Hales

Elder Koichi Aoyagi

Elder Bruce A. Carlson

Elder David A Bednar

Complete Priesthood Session

Priesthood Session MP3s

Elder Ronald A. Rasband

David L. Beck

Sunday Morning Session 1st Hour

Sunday Morning Session MP3s

Sunday Morning Session 2nd Hour

Complete Sunday Morning Session

Elder Donald L. Hallstrom

Cheryl C. Lant

Sunday Afternoon Session 1st Hour

Sunday Afternoon Session MP3s

Sunday Afternoon Session 2nd Hour

Complete Sunday Afternoon Session

Elder Gregory A. Schwitzer

Elder Bradley D. Foster

Elder James B. Martino

Elder Francisco J. Viñas

Streaming Video

As in previous years, live streaming video of the conference, as well as archived recordings of completed sessions will be available on demand through the official church website as well as through BYU TV and KSL.

Official Streaming Video on lds.org:

General Conference Video in American Sign Language

Podcasts

For the last couple of years, the church has provided official audio and video podcasts of the conference sessions. You can subscribe to the podcasts to receive conference on your iPod or in a podcast enabled feed reader like Google Reader. In past years KSL has also provided a podcast.

In my experience, the KSL podcast sessions often become available shortly after each session ends, but they have been very unreliable. The official audio podcast has sometimes been posted remarkably fast after the sessions, but it has also been a little inconsistent. Understandably, the video podcast posts a few days later during the following week.

Official LDS.org Audio Podcast (MP3s of Individual Talks)
Official LDS.org Video Podcast (MP4s of Individual Talks)
KSL Audio Podcast (One MP3 per Session)

Twitter #ldsconf

Over the last couple of years, twitter.com has emerged as a powerful online tool for live, real-time commentary. If you are a twitter user, you can post your conference comments using the #ldsconf hashtag.

View #ldsconf comments on twitter

Links to the mp3 audio and mp4 video podcast files will be automatically tweeted through NothingWavering.org through @ldsconference.

LDS Blogs

To find LDS blog commentary on the conference, you can check the LDS Blog Portal at NothiningWavering.org which aggregates blog posts by mainstream and orthodox LDS bloggers as well as content from official LDS websites. You can also check out LDS blog posts specifically tagged with ‘conference’. Nothing Wavering also tweets links to LDS blog posts and official content on twitter @ldsblogs, @ldsbloggers, and @ldsofficial, in addtion to the@ldsconference twitter page mentioned above.

Let me know if you have links to any other great conference resources.

Enjoy!

LDS General Conference October 2009 – MP3 Audio, Streaming Video, Audio & Video Podcasts, Facebook & Twitter #ldsconf

J. Max Wilson — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 04:30:49 +0000

This weekend, October 3rd and 4th 2009, we are participating once again in the semi-annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints where we listen to discourses by modern Apostles and Prophets of Jesus Christ. Every Conference I try to post links to MP3 audio and other Internet resources as they become available.

MP3 Audio

This post will be updated with the earliest available mp3 audio files as they become available. Links to the official MP3s at the church website will be added as they are posted by the church.

Saturday Morning Session MP3s

Saturday Morning Session 1st Hour

Saturday Morning Session 2nd Hour

Complete Saturday Morning Session

Vicki F. Matsumori

Elder L. Whitney Clayton

Russell T. Osguthorpe

Saturday Afternoon Session 1st Hour

Saturday Afternoon Session MP3s

Saturday Afternoon Session 2nd Hour

Complete Saturday Afternoon Session

Elder Jorge F. Zeballos

Elder Tad R. Callister

Elder Kent D. Watson

Complete Priesthood Session

Priesthood Session

Elder Walter F. Gonzalez

Elder Yoon Hwan Choi

Sunday Morning Session 1st Hour

Sunday Morning Session MP3s

Sunday Morning Session 2nd Hour

Complete Sunday Morning Session

Bishop H. David Burton

Ann M. Dibb

Sunday Afternoon Session 1st Hour

Sunday Afternoon Session MP3s

Sunday Afternoon Session 2nd Hour

Complete Sunday Afternoon Session

Elder Michael T. Ringwood

Elder Brent H. Nielson

Elder Dale G. Renlund

Elder Joseph W. Sitati

Streaming Video

Live streaming video of the conference, as well as archived recordings of completed sessions will be available on demand through the official church website as well as through BYU TV and KSL. The video at the official website and through byu.tv has been our primary conference experience for the several years now and we really enjoy it. You can even pause the conference to go to the bathroom and come back without missing a thing.

Official Streaming Video on lds.org:

General Conference Video in American Sign Language

BYU.tv:

KSL.com General Conference Video

KSL:

Podcasts

For a few years the church has provided official audio and video podcasts of the conference sessions. You can subscribe to the podcasts to receive conference on your iPod or in a podcast enabled feed reader like Google Reader. In past years KSL has also provided a podcast.

Official LDS.org Audio Podcast (MP3s of Individual Talks)
Official LDS.org Video Podcast (MP4s of Individual Talks)
KSL Audio Podcast (One MP3 per Session)

Facebook

For the first time this conference NothingWavering.org will be automatically posting links to audio and video of individual conference talks on Facebook. Become a fan of the Nothing Wavering Facebook page and you will see links to conference, as well as to posts from official LDS websites and LDS blogs right in your News Feed where they can be easily shared with friends an family.

Twitter #ldsconf

In recent years, twitter.com has emerged as a powerful online tool for live, real-time commentary. An article on the church’s official tech website described trends in twitter commentary a few General Conferences ago. In more recent conferences, the official twitter page of the @LDSNewsr0om has tweeted the conference as well. If you are a twitter user, you can post your conference comments using the #ldsconf hashtag.

View #ldsconf comments on twitter

Links to the mp3 audio and mp4 video podcast files will be automatically tweeted by NothingWavering.org through @ldsconference.

Video/Twitter Mashup

Bryce Haymond will again have a mashup of the live streaming video of the conference side-by-side with the twitter #ldsconf comments at his Temple Study blog .

LDS Blogs

To find LDS blog commentary on the conference, you can check the LDS Blog Portal at NothiningWavering.org which aggregates blog posts by mainstream and orthodox LDS bloggers as well as content from official LDS websites. You can also check out LDS blog posts specifically tagged with ‘conference’. Nothing Wavering also tweets links to LDS blog posts and official content on twitter @ldsblogs, @ldsbloggers, and @ldsofficial, in addition to the @ldsconference twitter page mentioned above.

Let me know if you have links to any other great conference resources.

Have a wonderful experience!

Breaking: LDS General Conference Priesthood Session Audio and Video Now Available on LDS.org

Jonathan Max Wilson — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:18:40 +0000

I don’t know if this is a temporary error or a permanent shift in policy, but the audio mp3 and video mp4 files of the Priesthood Sessions of General Conference are now available on the conference archive pages of the official church website:

April 2009

October 20008

April 2008

Last fall I broke the news that the church was considering allowing members to watch the Priesthood Session live this year by using the planned LDS Account login functionality. The LDS Account system was finalized and released earlier this year and rolled out to a number of church websites.

Making the audio and video available after the Conference Report Ensign magazine has been publish may represent a new policy for Priesthood session media.

We’ll see if the church makes an official statement.

(Hat tip to reader David S for the tip)

LDS General Conference April 2009 – MP3 Audio, Streaming Video, Audio & Video Podcasts, & Twitter #ldsconf

J. Max Wilson — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:17:25 +0000

[Looking for the October 2009 Conference, go here]

This weekend, April 4th and 5th, 2009, is the annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints where the modern Apostles and Prophets of Jesus Christ will speak. Every Conference I post links to MP3 audio and other Internet resources as they become available.

MP3 Audio

Saturday Morning Session MP3s

Saturday Morning Session 1st Hour

Saturday Morning Session 2nd Hour

Complete Saturday Morning Session

Margaret S. Lifferth

Michael A. Neider

Elder Allan F. Packer

Saturday Afternoon 1st Hour

Saturday Afternoon Session MP3s

Saturday Afternoon 2nd Hour

Complete Saturday Afternoon Session

Presented by Robert W. Cantwell

Presented by Brook P. Hales

Elder Kevin W. Pearson

Elder Rafael E. Pino

Sunday Morning Session 1st Hour

Sunday Morning Session MP3s

Sunday Morning Session 2nd Hour

Complete Sunday Morning Session

Elder Steven E. Snow

Barbara Thompson

Sunday Afternoon Session 1st Hour

Sunday Afternoon Session MP3s

Sunday Afternoon Session 2nd Hour

Complete Sunday Afternoon Session

Elder Gary E. Stevenson

Elder José A. Teixeira

Elder F. Michael Watson

Streaming Video

Live streaming video of the conference, as well as archived recordings of completed sessions will be available on demand through the official church website as well as through BYU TV and KSL. Our family has been watching the conference through the official website and through byu.tv for the last several years and it has been great. You can even pause the conference to go to the bathroom and come back without missing a thing.

Official Streaming Video on lds.org:

General Conference Video in Portugues

General Conference Video in American Sign Language

BYU.tv:

KSL.com General Conference Video

KSL:

Podcasts

Official LDS.org Audio Podcast (MP3s of Individual Talks)
Official LDS.org Video Podcast (MP4s of Individual Talks)
KSL Audio Podcast (One MP3 per Session)

Twitter #ldsconf

Over the last couple of years, twitter.com has emerged as a powerful online tool for live, real-time commentary. An article on the church’s official tech website described trends in twitter commentary during the last General Conference. This year, the official twitter page of the @LDSNewsr0om will be twittering the conference as well. If you are a twitter user, you can post your conference comments using the #ldsconf hashtag.

View #ldsconf comments on twitter

An archive of #ldsconf comments will be available @LDSConf.

Links to the mp3 audio and mp4 video podcast files will be automatically tweeted through NothingWavering.org through @ldsconference.

Video/Twitter Mashup

Bryce Haymond will have a mashup of the live streaming video of the conference side-by-side with the twitter #ldsconf comments at his Temple Study blog .

LDS Blogs

Let me know if you have links to any other great conference resources.

Enjoy!

LDS Entertainment on the Web: Comics and The Book of Jer3miah

J. Max Wilson — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:52:44 +0000

As the internet continues to transform the way we consume and even create entertainment, it is interesting to see how members of the LDS church are using the medium to create Mormon-specific entertainment distributed on the web.

As is usual with the web, not all of the content is worth promoting, or even consistently worth promoting.

In addition to blogging, we’ve seen the beginnings of a couple of LDS-oriented comic strips.

The 9th Ward is posted most Fridays by father-son team Rick and Ryan Goldsberry, who live in California, and features humorous vignettes related to Mormon culture.

Zarahemla Times is also posted Fridays by Kevin Beckstrom. It’s about a family living in the suburbs of Zarahemla in the time frame of about the end of Alma or Helaman in the Book of Mormon. Interesting in that it employs modern LDS terminology, such as the Relief Society, anarchronistically to an ancient setting.

So with blogging, podcasts, and now comics, we arrive at the next step in web-based LDS Entertainment: The Book of Jer3miah.

The Book of Jer3miah is a web series produced by a group of BYU Students and Faculty with new episodes posted…you guessed it…every Friday. The series is an interesting experiment in Web-based LDS Entertainment. Each episode is between 3.5 and 5 minutes long, and tells the mysterious story of Jeremiah Whitney. It starts on Jeremiah’s birthday with the gift of a video camera. The appearance of a mysterious card in his locked car directs him to the Manti Library, where the mystery begins to unfold.

The story has a lot of LDS thematic elements as well as an LDS setting. While some of writing and acting is pretty mediocre to poor, the story is interesting and takes an approach similar to popular Television shows Lost and Heroes. Like those shows, The Book of Jer3miah seems to have some supernatural overtones and only reveals some of what is going on in each episode, leaving fans to speculate and come up with theories.

Watch The Book of Jer3miah Trailer

The Book of Jer3miah – Trailer

I’ve watched all six existing episodes, and I hope that while entertaining and interesting, they can manage to not trivialize the Gospel and the church.

The episodes are available in HD and at 5 minutes an episode, I’ll definitely be watching to see what happens next.

Let me know what you think.

Video: How Do Mormons Have Fun Without Drinking Alcohol? Here’s How.

J. Max Wilson — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 06:15:58 +0000

When people think of Mormons, one of the few things they often know is that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints abstain from alcoholic drinks. I’ve known a few people who seem to think that you can’t have fun without a little help from the bottle, and for them the idea of an alcohol-free Mormon party sounds really boring. And depending on what they look for in a party, perhaps they are right. Bill Cosby has a few words for those in that camp.

After Thanksgiving, my uncle, cousin, brother-in-law, brother, and various other Wilson friends and family came over to my parents home for a spontaneous jam session. We had a blast laughing and dancing and suggesting new songs. So I wanted to share our Good Ol’ Clean Mormon Family Fun with the rest of you. Here they are with a spontaneous, improvised rendition of Sing Sing Sing (with a swing):

[Watch The Video on Google Video]

Just because we avoid vice and sin doesn’t mean we don’t know how to have a good time. Brigham Young was known to encourage the Mormon pioneers, after a long day of pulling carts across the plains, to pull out their instruments and dance and sing. That is part of our heritage, and joy is central to our doctrine. Is everything perfect? No. We have real problems with lost jobs, no medical insurance, serious health problems, struggles with ADD, failed relationships, bankruptcy, sick kids, and on and on. But just like the pioneers dancing out in the middle of nowhere, we don’t let our troubles keep us from finding joy and having a great time.

Now, you might not find a party like ours all that fun. And that’s fine with us. But I expect that our stone-cold-sober Mormon parties are more fun and more memorable than the alternative. While we may get a brain-freeze head-ache from all the ice-cream, we probably wont ever wake up with a hangover the next day. And we might come away having lost at a dozen games of Uno, but we’ll never wake up in bed with a stranger having lost not only our memory of how we got there, but our virtue.

So, if you are tired of drunken hedonism and are looking for some real happiness, come talk to us. We’d be happy to let you and your family join the real party! Your problems wont magically vanish, but you’ll have a great time anyway.

Barack Obama as Robin Hood: Socialism With a Smile

J. Max Wilson — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:01:00 +0000

I have a number of fairly conservative fiends and family members who are considering voting for Barack Obama. They’re rightly fed up with the ineptitude, corruption, and hypocricy of the Republican Party, and they perceive Barack Obama as a relatively benign Democrat who will at least be different than what we’ve had.

I plan a post in the near future to enumerate the reasons why I think that voting for Barack Obama is a mistake, but in this post I want to focus on Barack Obama’s Socialist Policies and political outlook. For those of you who view the state enforced redistribution of wealth as a positive, good thing, then Obama is your man and this post isn’t going to convince you otherwise, so simply skip down to watch the embedded video I think best represents Obama.

For those of you who are considering voting for Obama, but are not comfortable with the morality and the implications of forced socialism, read on.

Obviously, the United States has already become, in many ways, a socialist state. Wealth is forcefully collected and doled out in all kinds of ways. Those of us who don’t believe it is moral to forcefully take money from one and give it to another, that question the incentives or lack of incentives socialism creates, and who worry about the degree of governmental power required to do so (power that once acquired may be directed toward less beneficial ends), are already concerned about the current socialism in our system.

At least some of the anger directed at the Republican Party by those who have in the past supported it is because the Republicans have been acting more like Big Government Democrats than conservatives, and because George W. Bush’s “Compassionate Conservatism” ended up being pretty similar to Democratic Socialism.

But if that is the reason for the anger, then voting for more and greater socialism is not the answer. The idea that you are “teaching the Republicans a lesson” by voting for Barack Obama is ridiculous. If you are trying to send a message to the Republican Party that you dislike how they have governed, then voting for Barack Obama sends the wrong message. If you are determined to send a conservative message, then vote for the Libertarian candidate, or the Constitution Party candidate.

Is Barack Obama a socialist? Recently conservative bloggers have focused on the following exchange between Mr. Obama and a Plumber on the campaign trail:

Plumber to Obama: “Your new tax plan is going to tax me more. Isn’t it?”
.
Obama: “It’s not that I want to punish your success, I just want to make sure that everybody that is behind you, that they have a chance for success too. I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”

“Spreading the wealth,” sure sounds like socialism to me if it means that it is going to be enforced by the government.

And how does Mr. Obama plan to “spread the wealth” around? Through the forced redistribution of wealth via what he calls “tax credits.” When Obama talks about “Tax Cuts” on 95% of working families, he is not talking about real cuts on the percentage of money being collected as income tax. It is a little word game. Instead, he is proposing “tax credits” which he presents as equal to tax cuts.

The difference is that “tax cuts” decrease the amount of money the government is actually collecting. “Tax Credits” on the other hand mean that the government continues to collect the same amount or more in tax, but then credits money back to individuals that meet certain requirements. So how is that different? Tax cuts lower the tax burden on those who pay taxes. But with Tax Credits, everyone who qualifies for the credit gets money distributed from the IRS, even if they paid no income tax.

Estimates are that under Obama’s tax plan, over 40% of all those who file with the IRS would pay zero taxes, but most of those would still receive and cash a Tax Credit check from the IRS. This already happens with the Child Tax Credit, but Obama is planning on adding a lot more credits.

For a more extensive analysis, see this article in the Wall Street Journal: Obama’s 95% Illusion

So, what Obama is calling “Tax Cuts” are what conservatives have traditionally called “Welfare” or “the Government Dole.”

Tax the wealthy and distribute it to the less wealthy. Rob the rich to feed the poor. Barack Obama is a modern day Socialist Robin Hood. Except that by using government power to do it, he is using the Sheriff of Nottingham’s abuse of government power to achieve Robin Hood’s aims. You can’t be Robin Hood and the Sheriff at the same time, unless you are talking about Socialism with a capital S.

For those who espouse conservative ideas of what constitutes the proper role government, Barack Obama’s socialism should make him anathema as an option for our vote.

Some have said they will vote for Obama because of his first-class temperament . But Socialism with a Smile doesn’t make it any more acceptable.

One of the most memorable depictions of the kind of socialism I see promoted by Barack Obama is the following scene from one of my favorite movies of all time, Time Bandits. In the clip, the bandits, having just looted Napoleon Bonaparte, find themselves in the middle ages, and meet Robin Hood and his “Merry Men”—who aren’t so merry after all, but vicious thugs. Robin takes their ill-gotten gain and redistributes it to the poor, who in addition to getting a dole, also each get a punch in the face by one of the Merry Men.

A brilliant vignette and a long time favorite of mine, the clip seems to represent Obama pretty well: the friendly, smiling socialist, surrounded by unsavory associates (Ayers, Wright, Rezko, etc.) who is happy to take money from other robbers (fanny, freddie, etc.), and then later call them “awful people”, and whose socialist policies seem benevolent, but end up requiring a punch in the face, as socialism usually does in one way or another.

[ Watch the clip ]

“Jolly Good!”

New LDS Church Website and Embeddable Media to Support Traditional Marriage

J. Max Wilson — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 05:01:00 +0000

The LDS Church has a new official website, PreservingMarriage.org to support their efforts to preserve the traditional definition of marriage in California. Check it out. Also, LDS members everywhere can help support the effort by embedding church sponsored widgets and video from the site into their own blogs, websites, and facebook or myspace accounts. Check out the video below and embed it on your own website. You can get the embed code at the website.

[Link to Video]

Also from the church’s newsroom, excerpts from the special broadcast given for the members in the state of California:

[Link to Video]

LDS General Conference October 2008 – MP3 Audio, Streaming Video, and Audio & Video Podcasts

J. Max Wilson — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:04:00 +0000

This weekend is the semi-annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Every Conference I post links to MP3 audio and other Internet resources as they become available.

[Looking for the April 2009 Conference, go here]

[Looking for the October 2009 Conference, go here]

MP3 Audio
These are links to the earliest available audio I can find. I will post them as soon as the become available. They will be replaced by links to the official MP3s at the church website as they are posted.

Saturday Morning Session

Silvia H. Allred

Elder Marcos A. Aidukaitis

Saturday Afternoon Session

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin

Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge

Elder Gérald Caussé

Sunday Morning Session

Bishop Keith B. McMullin

Elaine S. Dalton

Sunday Afternoon Session

William D. Oswald

Elder Eduardo Gavarret

Elder Carlos A. Godoy

Streaming Video
Live Video, streamed over the Internet, as well as archived recordings of completed sessions is available on demand through BYU and KSL. We have watched the conference through BYU.tv several years in a row now and love it. The Video technology has continually improved and the official video streams from the church website are using the same technology for the first time this year. The video player only works on Windows or Mac OS X. Last year, KSL appeared to be using the same player as BYU.tv, so they may all be actually the same source. Also, starting last year church officially provides a Video Podcast (see the podcast section below).

Official Streaming Video on lds.org:
English
Spanish
Portuguese
American Sign Language

BYU.tv:
English
Spanish
Portuguese

KSL:
KSL.com Video

Podcasts
Last conference was the first time the church provided official audio and video podcasts of the sessions. In past years KSL has also provided a podcast. In past experience, the KSL podcast sessions become available shortly after the session ends, but it has been unreliable. Last year the official audio podcast was posted remarkably fast after the sessions. Understandably the video posts a few days later.

The official podcasts include last week’s General Relief Society meeting, but strangely the video podcast, even a week later appears to only contain audio, not video.

Official LDS.org Audio Podcast (MP3s of Individual Talks)
Official LDS.org Video Podcast (MP4s of Individual Talks)
KSL Audio Podcast (One MP3 per Session)

Let me know if you have links to any other great conference resources.

Enjoy!

Feel Good Video of the Year

J. Max Wilson — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:05:00 +0000

I hope those of you who might be a little offended by the title of this video, will watch it anyway. Not only does it represent an amazing accomplishment, but I love the way it brings so many cultures and so many of God’s children together in a silly, but surprisingly touching display of cross-cultural connectedness.

I believe that dance is part of our human soul and represents a fundamental part of what it means to be human and a child of God.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Hat tip: North Temple

LDS General Conference April 2008 – MP3 Audio, Streaming Video, and Audio & Video Podcasts

J. Max Wilson — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 01:39:00 +0000

[Looking for October 2008 General Conference? Go here.]

[Looking for April 2009 General Conference, go here.]

[Looking for the October 2009 Conference, go here]

This weekend we are holding the annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Every year I try to post links to MP3 audio and other Internet resources as they become available. This conference will include the sustaining of Thomas S. Monson as the President of the High Priesthood and Prophet.

MP3 Audio
These are links to the earliest available audio I can find. They will be replaced by links to the MP3s at the church website as they are posted.

Saturday Morning Session
Entire Session

Elder Ronald A. Rasband

Sister Cheryl C. Lant

Elder Kenneth Johnson

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin

Presented by Robert W. Cantwell

Saturday Afternoon Session

Entire Session

Presented by F. Michael Watson

Elder Gerald N. Lund

Elder Carlos H. Amado

Elder Willian R. Walker

Sunday Morning Session

Entire Session

Elder Sheldon F. Child

Susan W. Tanner

Sunday Afternoon Session

Entire Session

Elder Dennis B. Neuenschwander

Elder W. Craig Zwick

Elder Robert R. Steuer

Elder Lance B. Wickman

Elder Craig C. Christensen