SALT LAKE CITY — It's not easy to help 21,000 exit a building and get another 21,000 people into the building and in their seats in a two-hour window — multiple times over a weekend. But that is the job of the guest services team during general conference.

"It is non-stop," said Vanett White, guest services events coordinator for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

About 400 guest service missionaries called to serve at Temple Square volunteer about 9,000 hours every conference weekend, she said.

"We try to quickly get people to exit because we only have 30 minutes from the time the first session of conference ends (until) we start loading for the second," she said.

Missionaries have about 10 minutes to comb between the seats at the Conference Center between the five sessions as they get ready to let the next group of people in.

"It is a big challenge, and we love doing it," White said.

She said guests come for healing and hope, and the support team's main purpose is to bring people to Christ. White said she has seen the Lord's hand directing her while serving with the service missionaries.

Stage crew

The Conference Center is typically set up for the Orchestra at Temple Square to perform, as well as the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. The look that members of the church are used to during conferences, with tiers of seats for church leaders, is an apparatus set up each time by the staging team.

Watch this weekend

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will convene its 195th Annual General Conference on Saturday, April 5 and Sunday, April 6. Watch live and read talk summaries at KSL.com.

Joe Wright, the team's supervisor, has been helping with the process since the first conference held at the Conference Center in 2000, helping with over 50 general conference sessions since.

It takes about three weeks to assemble the stage. This includes moving 18 modules Wright compared to the size of a living room using blowers that allow it to float similarly to an upside-down air hockey table. He considers the team that helps "unsung heroes."

Wright said the hand of the Lord is involved in helping them set up the many necessary items, including carpets, scaffolding, wooden panels, chairs, handrails and tables in the lobbies — to name a few.

At the first conference in the new building, Wright was in the lobby listening to many different languages and he thought of a scripture in Isaiah that says in the last days all nations would gather to "the mountain of the Lord's house."

"As I thought about that, I was very impressed that I was participating in the fulfillment of that prophecy in many ways," he said.

Translations

General conference is available live in more than 70 languages — which takes a lot of work from translators, including 57 teams in Salt Lake City and 143 teams around the world.

Although scripts are translated ahead of time, translators still have to listen to the speakers and translate when church leaders skip parts or go outside of their pre-written talk, according to Carmen Barrios, global interpretation manager for the church.

She explained interpretation, rather than translation, requires also paying attention to time. Each interpreter needs to fit the speakers' messages into the same amount of time as the speaker in whatever language they are sharing the message.

"One thing I know is that this is the work of the Lord, because at the end, regardless of our imperfections, he fixes the things that we thought couldn't be fixed," Barrios said.

Multiple interpreters shared their experiences in one of three videos released by the church since the last general conference, along with guest service missionaries and members of the staging team.

The church said it plans to release more videos showcasing behind-the-scenes aspects of general conference and translate them into Spanish, Portuguese and French.

The goal of the videos is "to thank the many hands and hearts for whom general conference is a labor of love," said Craig Middlemas, a content manager helping produce the videos.

He said sharing small miracles that happen each conference can exemplify that God is in the details.

"Their small contributions matter as well. Each adds to the effort of building the kingdom of God by small and simple contributions," Middlemas said.

The church invites anyone to listen to general conference messages this weekend. Live streams and talk summaries will be available at KSL.com.

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