Under direction of the First Presidency, the 160th Annual General Conference is convening on Temple Square in Salt Lake City Saturday, March 31, and Sunday, April 1.

Presiding over the conference is President Ezra Taft Benson. Taking turns conducting various sessions are his counselors, President Gordon B. Hinckley and President Thomas S. Monson.The conference's four general sessions - two each Saturday and Sunday - and the Saturday evening priesthood session include messages from the First Presidency and members of the Council of the Twelve, of the Quorums of the Seventy and the Presiding Bishopric.

Times for Saturday's general conference sessions are 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Mountain Standard Time; the Saturday priesthood session is 6 p.m. MST. With the nation's clocks being set ahead one hour at 2 a.m. on April 1, Sunday sessions of conference will be 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time. The Sunday morning session will be preceded by the Tabernacle Choir's weekly broadcast, Music and the Spoken Word.

Proceedings of the conference are being telecast over satellite in 16 languages. Church units in North America and Hawaii, with proper TV satellite reception capabilities, are receiving conference broadcasts via satellite in the following languages: Cambodian, Cantonese, English, French, Haitian Creole, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Mandarin, Navajo, Portuguese, Samoan, Spanish, Tongan, and Vietnamese.

All sessions are being telecast via satellite to more than 2,600 meetinghouses throughout the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic equipped with satellite receivers. Satellite transmissions to meetinghouses are via Westar IV. In addition, all sessions but the Saturday evening priesthood session will be transmitted via satellite to more than 550 cable television systems in the United States. Cable systems are via Galaxy III on Saturday and Galaxy I on Sunday.

Church units in areas of the world where satellite and other transmissions are not available will receive videotapes of the conference sessions. European languages will be translated and made available through the Lynge, Denmark distribution center. Oriental languages are translated and dubbed at the distribution centers in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Taipei and Seoul. Spanish and Portuguese language tapes will be distributed throughout Latin America.

The 325-voice Mormon Tabernacle Choir, under the direction of Jerold D. Ottley and Don Ripplinger with Robert Cundick and John Longhurst at the organ, will sing during the Sunday sessions of conference. The Mormon Youth Chorus is providing music for the Saturday morning session, with Robert C. Bowden directing and Clay Christiansen at the organ.

A Primary children's choir from the Granger Utah Region will sing Saturday afternoon. The Combined Men's Choir from the LDS institutes of religion in Ephraim, Orem, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Logan will sing at the Saturday evening priesthood session.

Portions of the conference are being provided to commercial television and radio stations in the United States on a public service basis and on shortwave radio, frequency 15.590 Megahertz.