October general conference has a character all its own.

Maybe it's the crispness in the air or the colorful foliage in the Wasatch Mountains surrounding the Salt Lake Valley, where the conference originates.

It is harvest time in many locales where the conference sessions are carried. That suggests some symbolism as it relates to conference. It is a fitting time for a spiritual harvest, a time to take stock of our individual and collective growth and accomplishment since the last time the Church leaders addressed us from a Churchwide platform. Moreover, conference can be a time for filling our spiritual storehouses against a coming winter of temptation and trial, of affliction and adversity.

Fall is a reminder of the scriptural lessons involving the imagery of harvest.

There is, of course, the well-known admonition in Doctrine and Covenants 4 pertaining to bringing souls to Christ: "The field is white already to harvest; and lo, he that thrusteth in his sickle with his might, the same layeth up in store that he perisheth not, but bringeth salvation to his soul." (Verse 4.) Carrying the conference proceedings to an ever-widening audience worldwide is certainly one means the Lord and His servants have of reaping "while the day lasts." (See Doctrine and Covenants 6:3.)

"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," the apostle Paul taught in one of his epistles (Galatians 6:7), a concept that was reiterated in latter-day revelation given through Joseph Smith, "Fear not to do good, my sons, for whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap; therefore, if ye sow good ye shall also reap good for your reward" (Doctrine and Covenants 6:33).

This "law of the harvest" has been an occasional theme for general conference speakers over the years. President Spencer W. Kimball, for example, emphasized gardening, at least in part because of what it can teach about life and eternity. "We do reap what we sow," he said in April 1978. "Even if the plot of soil you cultivate, plant and harvest is a small one, it brings human nature closer to nature as was the case in the beginning with our first parents. . . . As a boy I saw how all, young and old, worked and worked hard. We knew that we were taming the Arizona desert. But had I been wiser then, I would have realized that we were taming ourselves too. Honest toil in subduing sagebrush, taming deserts, channeling rivers, helps to take the wildness out of man's environment but also out of him."

The scriptures also teach that we sow seeds in expectation of a harvest not just for ourselves but for others.

"I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor," King Benjamin said to his people, "every man according to that which he hath . . . both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants. And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order" (Mosiah 4:26-27).

Under the leadership of President Brigham Young, the pioneers of 1846-47 practiced this counsel, planting crops in temporary settlements along the trail so they could be harvested and consumed by the poor and less-provisioned who would come along later. Commenting upon this, Elder B.H. Roberts wrote: "Plant that others may harvest! Sow that others may reap! This the lesson of every civilization that is worth while. . . . This is the spirit of this New Dispensation of the gospel received by and exemplified in the lives of this modern Israel" (A Comprehensive History of the Church, 3:43).

The Perpetual Education Fund has been a frequent topic for President Gordon B. Hinckley in recent general conferences. Surely there could not be a better demonstration of the principle of sowing so others may reap than this loving endeavor wherein worthy and capable young Church members are aided in their educational and vocational pursuits by those who are better advantaged.

May this and other lessons of the harvest pervade our minds as we enjoy this October's general conference sessions, whether we attend in person, watch or listen by various transmissions either live or on delayed broadcasts, or read the printed texts later.