Diverse as the brilliant autumn plantings gracing Temple Square, thousands of Latter-day Saints from many lands and cultures are converging on the grounds this weekend for the 166th Semiannual Conference of the Church.

The conference comes at a time when the gospel is being preached more widely and with greater success than ever in this dispensation. With current technology carrying the proceedings around the globe, the holding of general conference is a link between the Church's momentous past and its prophetic future.President Gordon B. Hinckley and his counselors in the First Presidency, President Thomas S. Monson and President James E. Faust, are in turn conducting the general sessions at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. MDT Saturday, Oct. 5, and Sunday, Oct. 6., and the priesthood session at 6 p.m. Saturday.

All sessions are held in the Salt Lake Tabernacle and televised via satellite. More than 3,000 stake centers and other Church buildings in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic are equipped with satellite receivers.

General sessions are being carried live on KSL-TV Channel 5 in Salt Lake City and by tape-delay on KBYU-TV Channel 11 in Provo, Utah. In addition, general sessions are being transmitted via satellite to more than 1,200 cable television systems in the United States.

With proper TV satellite reception capabilities, Church units and members may receive the conference broadcasts via Galaxy 4 (Channels 12 and 13) or on Galaxy 7 (Channel 8) in English, Spanish, French, German, Cambodian, Cantonese, Haitian, Hmong, Korean, Laotian, Mandarin, Navajo, Portuguese, Samoan, Tongan and Vietnamese.

The Saturday and Sunday morning sessions are transmitted live to Europe, and the priesthood session and the Saturday afternoon sessions are transmitted on a delayed basis Sunday, Oct. 6. The Tabernacle Choir program "Music and the Spoken Word" also is transmitted live. All European transmissions will go in 11 languages on Intelstat K. English and German transmissions may be picked up on privately owned dishes in Western Europe. More than 100 stake and ward buildings have downlink equipment in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Switzerland.

In areas of the world where satellite reception of conference is not possible, videotapes of conference sessions will be available to Church units through Church distribution centers.

Here are other facts about the conference provided by the Church Public Affairs Department:

- Music. Music for the conference will be provided at the Sunday sessions by the Tabernacle Choir under the direction of Jerold Ottley and Craig Jessop, with Clay Christiansen and Richard Elliot at the organ. The Saturday morning session features the Mormon Youth Chorus, with Robert C. Bowden directing and Bonnie L. Goodliffe at the organ. A Primary children's choir from stakes in Sandy and Draper, Utah, will sing at Saturday afternoon's session with Kay Asay directing and Linda Margetts at the organ. (Please see pages 8-9 for photos and a story about the Primary choir). At the priesthood session, a men's choir from the Provo Missionary Training Center will perform, directed by Douglas Brenchley, with John Longhurst at the organ.

- Broadcasting. Portions of the conference are being provided to commercial television and radio stations and cable networks in the United States and Canada as a public service.

- Translation. Non-English-speaking persons seated in the Tabernacle, Assembly Hall, the Legacy Theater in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, Temple Square North Visitors Center and local ward chapels can listen to proceedings in their own languages through special headsets by virtue of interpreters stationed in the Tabernacle lower level.

For the hearing-impaired, proceedings are available via sign language in the Assembly Hall. All TV broadcasts are close-captioned.

Language translators and interpreters are virtually all volunteers who donate many hours of labor before and during conference.