Area Man Alleges General Conference Reruns

SPRINGVILLE, UT—Melvin Fingdingler of the Springville 13th Ward believes that the church has been showing old reruns of general conference during April and October for the past several years.

According to Fingdingler, the realization came when, this past April, he awoke briefly from his semi-annual general conference nap to hear the monotone words of a talk he was almost sure he had heard before.

“I thought I was dreaming until I distinctly heard the speaker say, ‘I lift thee and thou lift me, and we both will rise together,’” explained Fingdingler. “That line piqued my curiosity, since I was almost positive I’d heard the same speaker say it with the same intonation years ago.”

Fingdingler began rummaging through the old general conference videotapes that his wife keeps next to the Living Scripture videos under the television. Upon reviewing a conference tape from April 1997, he confirmed his theory that the church is just rerunning old general conferences.

“My first thought was, why hasn’t anyone else noticed this yet?” Fingdingler remarked. “But then I began to think about it and just decided that, you know, it’s all good. Read your scriptures, be good, say your prayers, et cetera. How many times can you change up those themes in an effort to make them sound interesting? Please. These men may have the priesthood, but they’re not magicians.”

Fingdingler called church headquarters to inquire about the reruns. He said he was given the runaround by a secretary who declined to give her name. She did, however, end the awkward phone call by explaining to Fingdingler her own opinion as to why the church began showing conference reruns.

“I think at first the church would rotate the same talk themes every few years, but then they just kind of thought, what’s the point?” said the secretary. “It’s kind of like the whole sealed portion of the Book of Mormon thing, you know? We’ll never get the sealed portion until we’re living the doctrine already revealed. I guess we still haven’t incorporated that talk about member missionary work from 1998, so the church just decided to keep showing it until we do.”