I love General Conference, they are two of my favorite weekends of the entire year. I’ve posted in the past some FHE lessons to help prepare kids for conference and posted my thoughts on conference many times. For awhile I tried running a General Conference book club, but it never took off like I’d hoped. I love that we now have the opportunity to basically have a book club type discussion in Relief Society every other week for these wonderful words from our prophet and leaders!
For the past four years, I’ve had the privilege of serving as the Relief Society Secretary in our ward. Part of my responsibilities has included helping to coordinate lesson schedules for both the Relief Society and Elder’s Quorum. Our process started with a very basic spreadsheet, but through the years, it’s grown into something much more organized and collaborative. After spending so much time perfecting our system I’m excited to share it with you! Hopefully this General Conference lesson schedule spreadsheet can help you simplify the process of creating a lesson schedule for your ward too! (The spreadsheet is currently pre-populated with the talks from October 2024 conference)
The Why Behind the Spreadsheet
Our goal with creating this schedule is simple: we want to foster meaningful discussions in both the Relief Society and Elder’s Quorum by focusing on talks from General Conference. By coordinating our lessons, we give families the chance to talk about the same messages during the week—making it a shared experience between spouses, family members, and even friends. We also aim to ensure that our lesson topics reflect the needs of the ward while balancing seasonal themes (like gratitude near Thanksgiving or talks on the Resurrection around Easter).
The Spreadsheet in Action
The process actually begins before General Conference even happens. About a week before, we prepare a version of the spreadsheet that has no talks listed—just the basic structure. Both the Relief Society and Elder’s Quorum presidencies share this sheet to ensure collaboration. It would be easy to include the bishopric as well, but in our ward, that hasn’t been part of the process historically.
During Conference weekend, one member of the presidency keeps the spreadsheet open and fills in the talks as they happen. We usually rely on KSL’s news blog to get the titles quickly—usually within 30 minutes of the talks being given. Once all the talks are in, the real magic begins.
Each presidency member marks the talks they feel would be most valuable for discussion by simply placing an “X” in their assigned column. It’s a straightforward way for everyone to voice their opinions on which talks resonate most with the needs of the ward. We also start a discussion on our Relief Society’s GroupMe about the conference so that we can get feedback from the sisters in our ward in real time about what is resonating with them.
Creating the Lesson Schedule
After everyone has had time to vote, the presidencies meet together to plan the schedule. We start by listing out all the Sundays that need to be scheduled on the right-hand column of the spreadsheet. This usually starts with the fourth Sunday of the month following General Conference and going through to the second Sunday of the month after the next General Conference, and includes every second and fourth Sunday in between. We are sure to take note of any Sundays where lessons won’t be held due to Stake Conference, holidays like Christmas, or other special events.
From there, we typically look at how the talks ranked based on the votes. The spreadsheet includes a formula that automatically takes all of the talks that received any votes and puts them on the schedule page in ranked order. This makes it SO much easier to sort through and find which talks that we all liked. The highest-ranked talks often go straight onto the schedule, though we leave room for discussion if someone feels strongly about a particular talk that didn’t get as many votes. Sometimes a talk might have been a favorite of everyone’s but it might not really be a good discussion talk, so we try to take those things into consideration.
Another thing we consider is seasonal themes. For example, if there’s a talk on gratitude, we might aim to schedule it near Thanksgiving. We also try to link talks that share similar themes. If we find talks that complement each other well then we might assign two talks to a particular week to maximize conference coverage and create cohesive lessons.
Sometimes there are talks that feel more appropriate for Relief Society or Elder’s Quorum individually. In those cases, we’ll schedule separate lessons, but we still try to coordinate so that most lessons are aligned.
Once we’re happy with the schedule, we send it off to the bishop for approval. After he gives the green light, we input the schedule into Tools so that everyone in the ward has access. (If you don’t know how to input your schedule into Tools I’d recommend checking out this YouTube video that has a great walkthrough)
Ready to Try It?
If this process sounds like something that could help your ward or organization, you can copy our template Google sheet and customize it for your own use. It’s been such a helpful tool for us, and I hope it will make your lesson planning just a little bit easier and helps your presidency organize lessons in a way that fosters unity and meaningful discussion in your ward. If you have any questions or thoughts, I’d love to hear them in the comments! 😊
