2021 Conference
Trust in the Lord

June 10-13, 2021
Salt Lake City, Utah

Sheraton Salt Lake City Hotel
150 W 500 S, Salt Lake City, UT, 84101

President’s Message

My beloved brothers and sisters, 

On behalf of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee,  I welcome you to the 2021 North Star Conference. Please know that you are among friends who love you dearly and who share your desire to live the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are so grateful you are here and that we are able to actually gather this year―either in person or virtually―as we weren’t sure if this was going to be a possibility this year with the global pandemic. God truly is in this work. Please know that you have all been prayed and fasted for in the hopes that you will walk away from  this conference with more hope, connection and a deeper relation to our Savior Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father.

The purpose of the North Star Conference is to bring together Latter-day Saints who share a unique path and precious perspectives of  living with same-sex attraction or identify as LGBT and to gather with their loved ones, families and church leaders, so that we might learn from and strengthen each other as we strive to live the gospel and make and keep sacred covenants. The Conference Committee has spent hundreds and hundreds of hours and diligently sought the Spirit of the Lord to make the conference what it needs to be this year. We encourage you  to take advantage of the amazing keynote addresses that will be given and the wide variety of breakout sessions that will address more the specific needs of those in our community. We also encourage you to take a minute and look around and notice that you are not alone. We also encourage you to reach out and connect to someone  you may not know or someone you may not fully understand yet. There is power in reaching outside of our comfort zones to love and connect with another person and  God will meet you there as you do so. 

The theme of this year’s conference is Trust in the Lord. We all are at various places  in our journeys of faith with our Father in Heaven and please know that wherever you are in this journey, you are loved. And please know that your Heavenly Parents see you and love you and are walking this path with you. Even though we may not always feel as close to them as we would like, I promise you that they are there. They see and understand your pains, your sorrows, your loneliness, your joys, your triumphs and your successes. I promise that as we truly seek to trust in the Lord and strive to follow our prophet’s advice of seeking to “Hear Him”, remarkable blessings are in store.

This path of sexuality/gender and faith is not an easy one, but it is one where we can truly come to know our Heavenly Parents in deep and profound ways. This has been my experience and it has changed my life for the better. I challenge all of us to use our  individual and shared experiences that bring us together at this conference today to  forge a deeper relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus. I pray that we can all feel power from heaven as we together, and individually, seek to Trust in the Lord.

Spencer Thompson

President, North Star International

Conference Program

Leadership