{"id":33978,"date":"2015-09-25T04:51:46","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T09:51:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=33978"},"modified":"2015-09-25T04:51:46","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T09:51:46","slug":"the-general-conference-mirth-index-take-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2015\/09\/the-general-conference-mirth-index-take-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The General Conference Mirth Index \u2013 Take 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"monson<\/a>I always enjoy the opportunity to laugh a little bit in general conference. In January, I introduced the General Conference Mirth Index<\/a> (for the October 2014 conference), which sums up the number of laughs for each talk. As we enter into the next General Conference this weekend, let\u2019s see how much laughing we did last April.<\/p>\n

A quick recap.<\/strong> To calculate this, I listen to each conference talk and record the number of instances of laughter that I hear. (Note that I\u2019m not counting jokes or judging what is a joke; I\u2019m only counting what induces laughter.) I listen to each talk in the language in which it was delivered, since the English voiceover often covers the laughter. I then adjust by the length of the talk. This has limitations \u2013 it weighs equally Elder Gibson\u2019s chuckle from not eating dinner<\/a> with Elder Pearson\u2019s medium-sized laugh from #spaciousbuilding<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Big picture<\/strong>. More than half the talks had at least one laugh (57%, to be precise). There was one joke that landed brilliantly during the conducting, when President Uchtdorf started speaking in German<\/a> on Sunday afternoon: \u201cSorry, President Monson. \u2026 I went into my German native language.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last October, Sunday morning had the fewest laughs. In April, the Women\u2019s Session had the fewest. This confirms my previously expressed hypothesis: \u201cWhich is the least mirthful session of General Conference?\u201d is \u201cThe session in which President Uchtdorf isn\u2019t speaking.\u201d Last fall, President Uchtdorf spoke in the Women\u2019s Session, where he delivered 9 laughs, as compared with just 2 from other speakers in the session. This spring, President Eyring spoke in the Women\u2019s Session with 0 laughs, whereas the other speakers delivered 4. (Go women auxiliary leaders!) You can watch President Bonnie Oscarson deliver two in rapid succession as she characterized her daughter\u2019s presentation of motherhood at Career Day at her children\u2019s school, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"image001\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Priesthood session is still the place to go if you want to laugh. (There are other benefits too, I promise.) Not only did it have the most laughs, it had the fewest talks with no laughs at all (just one).<\/p>\n

Who made us laugh the most? <\/strong>Two talks tied for the most absolute laughs. Elder Wilford Andersen\u2019s talk on The Music of the Gospel (here\u2019s a link to a laugh moment<\/a>) and President Monson\u2019s talk on The Priesthood\u2014A Sacred Gift (here\u2019s one laugh-inducing story<\/a>) each had about 7 laughs. But Elder Andersen edged President Monson out on the per-15-minute average, since he delivered the same number of laughs in about 3 minutes less time.<\/p>\n

\"image003\"<\/a><\/p>\n

President Uchtdorf, as usual, brought on the most overall laughs (11, by my count), 5 in each talk plus the one conducting moment above. Here a few funny moments: looking our best<\/a>, why we\u2019re at General Conference<\/a>, and metaphors for grace<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was also great to see some laughter in one of the non-English talks: Elder Pino made people laugh talking about pizza<\/a>, as did Elder Zeballos when talking about what happens<\/a> when missionaries find out that someone already attending church is not in fact a member.<\/p>\n

In Memoriam.<\/strong> Since the last conference, three of our leaders have passed on. Both of those who spoke made us laugh: President Packer talked about his courtship (\u201cthe rest is history\u201d<\/a>), and Elder Perry told of a Muslim scholar quoting the LDS Proclamation on the Family<\/a>. Elder Scott missed this last conference, but I remember a talk in 1999 when he made people laugh with some frank talk about realistic expectations<\/a> in seeking your eternal companion.<\/p>\n

Hopefully, we\u2019ll continue to laugh with them in the future. In this last conference, Elder Oaks recycled a joke (\u201cthe gifted pickle-sucker\u201d) from President Hinckley<\/a> to great effect, as did Elder Neil Andersen with a line from Elder Neal Maxwell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Round up. <\/strong>As you\u2019re listening to General Conference this weekend, listen for the Spirit, and enjoy the laughs we are given along the way. April\u2019s conference had more laughs than last October\u2019s, so who knows? Maybe we\u2019re riding an upward trend. I hope so, since \u2013 like Uncle Albert in Marry Poppins<\/a> \u2013 I love to laugh.<\/p>\n

What were your favorite moments?<\/p>\n

Bonus links<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. LDS Daily lets you vote for the funniest historic moment in General Conference<\/a>.<\/li>\n
  2. MormonMissionPrep has created a series of awesome video compilations<\/a> of funny stories from General Conferences\u00a0over the last few years.<\/li>\n
  3. When should you\u00a0not<\/span>\u00a0joke in General Conference? In the wonderful biography of President Henry B. Eyring, I Will Lead You Along<\/a>,\u00a0a passage from his journal (excerpted here<\/a>) highlights a time he received an impression to omit humor from his talk:\u00a0\u201cI slept restlessly, still puzzled that the Spirit had told me to drop both humor and stories from my conference talk. During the morning session, I learned that Elder Tuttle, who has cancer, was to speak unexpectedly. He spoke without notes before me, bearing what may be his last testimony. And Elder F. Burton Howard followed me, telling stories directly parallel to the ones that I\u2019d felt impressed to drop from my talk. I learned that God sets the melody for conference and asks us each to play the notes He needs. (October 5, 1986)\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I always enjoy the opportunity to laugh a little bit in general conference. In January, I introduced the General Conference Mirth Index (for the October 2014 conference), which sums up the number of laughs for each talk. As we enter into the next General Conference this weekend, let\u2019s see how much laughing we did last April. A quick recap. To calculate this, I listen to each conference talk and record the number of instances of laughter that I hear. (Note that I\u2019m not counting jokes or judging what is a joke; I\u2019m only counting what induces laughter.) I listen to each talk in the language in which it was delivered, since the English voiceover often covers the laughter. I then adjust by the length of the talk. This has limitations \u2013 it weighs equally Elder Gibson\u2019s chuckle from not eating dinner with Elder Pearson\u2019s medium-sized laugh from #spaciousbuilding. Big picture. More than half the talks had at least one laugh (57%, to be precise). There was one joke that landed brilliantly during the conducting, when President Uchtdorf started speaking in German on Sunday afternoon: \u201cSorry, President Monson. \u2026 I went into my German native language.\u201d Last October, Sunday morning had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10383,"featured_media":33979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1284,1058],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-conference-features","category-guest-bloggers"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/image002.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10383"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33978"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33984,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33978\/revisions\/33984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}