Mormons should strive for forgiveness despite the anger and bitterness that can follow tragedy, an elder in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints counseled Sunday, the second day of the faith's biannual conference.

"Most of us need time to work through pain and loss. We can find all manner of reasons for postponing forgiveness," an emotional James E. Faust, one of two counselors to church President Gordon B. Hinckley said.

Pres. Faust pointed to examples of forgiveness from events recent and past. Members of Pennsylvania's Amish community reached out to the family of a man who shot and killed five schoolgirls last fall and Utah's Ceran and Christensen families called for prayers and unconditional forgiveness for the drivers who took the lives of their family members here just a few months ago, he said. And some 27 years ago, the father of a man killed by bomb built by forger Mark Hofmann found peace only after letting go of anger, Pres. Faust said.

"If we can find forgiveness in our hearts for those who have caused us hurt, and injury, we will rise to a higher level of self-esteem and well being," Pres. Faust said.

The 12.5 million member Utah-based church holds general conference twice yearly, gathering more than 100,000 followers at the conference center to hear spiritual direction and words of inspiration from church leaders. The April and October proceedings are broadcast on television, radio, satellite and over the Internet to 85 countries, simultaneously translated into 89 different languages.

Other speakers Sunday called for couples to avoid divorce, strengthen their faith through prayer and by reading the Bible and the Book of Mormon, the church's central religious text.

This weekend's event — the 177th for the church founded April 6, 1830 by Joseph Smith — was marked by Saturday's reopening of the Salt Lake Tabernacle. Closed since 2005, the home of the world-renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir has undergone renovation work and seismic retrofitting to preserve the 140-year-old building and prevent damages in the event of a major earthquake.

Saturday's service there was the first since 1999, when the church opened its 21,000-seat conference center nearby allowing more Latter-day Saints to attend the biannual meetings in person.

With the Tabernacle's reopening, the choir is expected to return there for its weekly television and radio broadcasts of "Music and the Spoken Word," one of the longest, continuous running programs in broadcast history.