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They come every six months — speech after speech from dozens of top LDS leaders.

By the last amen of each General Conference, it can be difficult for even the most observant Mormon to remember who said what.

Some sermons, though, stick in individual memories for months, years, even decades.

We asked several Latter-day Saints to tell us about a favorite conference talk and why it impressed them.

Michael Hicks • Professor of music at Brigham Young University and author of "The Mormon Tabernacle Choir: A Biography."

Why would I pick a talk — "What Is Your Destination?" by the late LDS apostle Marvin J. Ashton — given in April 1972, a year and a half before I joined the church? Because my first bishop tried to teach me his brand of Mormonism by having me index a batch of cassettes of talks he loved. That way I'd have to listen to every word. This talk was on one of those cassettes. So I think of it now partly because it's in the original Mormon "brew" I drank up as a teenager. I'd come out of some raucous Pentecostalism — which I also loved — but wanted a quieter, larger-visioned, more universal church. This talk has some of what I sought. Three things, at least.

As someone who had wandered into Mormonism, I loved the focus on "traveling in truth," as Elder Ashton puts it. We converts intuit that we grow only by avoiding what he brilliantly calls "the stagnations of arriving."

I loved the tone of the man giving it — humble, reserved, positive. And what's more, he talks about friends of his who were incarcerated. That, in part, is the religion of Jesus (Matt. 25).

"I am concerned," Elder Ashton said, "that many of us are confused in our life's travels with destinations, arrivals, stops, calls, stations and assignments. It appears to me that some of us may be lost today because we think we have arrived."

I love that he celebrates "eternal progress" and "eternal progression" — old-school Mormon values — and, near the end, offers this sidebar: "We are eternal, and God never intended for us to travel alone." Here's my sidebar to his: I often hear the gospel in rock songs, one of which echoes so charmingly Elder Ashton's words: Van Morrison's "Checkin' It Out" (1978), which says, "And all the obstacles along the way/Sometimes may feel so tremendous/There are guides and spirits all along the way/Who will befriend us." One of those guides and spirits, for me, was Elder Ashton, whose influence has waned in recent years, but which will never be lost on me.

Azul Uribe • Translator, writer, and blogger at http://www.happycosmopolite.wordpress.com. She also works on the LDS immigration-reform movement #togetherwithoutborders.

After my forced repatriation to Mexico, a place I had left as a toddler, a friend gave me a copy of Chieko N. Okazaki's "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." I found myself searching for everything the late counselor in the Relief Society's general presidency had written and discovered October 1991's "Rejoice in Every Good Thing."

I come back to this talk a lot. There are times when things feel so overwhelming, I ask myself if I am really contributing in a meaningful way and this talk draws the circle wide enough to include everyone.

Sister Okazaki is a reminder that an outsider like me has a voice of value institutionally, too, and that sometimes I just need to bond and love with my sisters — varied and wonderful — to find the path to Christ.

"Wherever you are, whatever you are wearing, whatever language you are hearing, you are part of a powerful force of joy, peace and goodness," she said. "We are here to rejoice together 'in every good thing.' "

Alice Faulkner Burch • LDS Relief Society president at the Genesis Group, a support organization for black Mormons.

In October 1989, I was still adjusting to after-the-mission life and setting goals for my future. I had read then-LDS Church President Ezra Taft Benson's talks while on my mission and appreciated how he spoke to each group of people. Of those talks, "To the Elderly in the Church," delivered in October 1989, had a huge impact on me. Although the talk was mostly to the elderly, he also gave counsel to the families and ecclesiastical leaders of the elderly. Little did I know that, less than a year later, I would be taking care of my mother. These two pieces of advice shaped how I cared for her and how I made my decisions in her care.

"Let us," President Benson said, "also learn to be forgiving of our parents, who, perhaps having made mistakes as they reared us, almost always did the best they knew how."

Mama, like all parents and like all people, had made mistakes in her life. Some of those involved and affected me. I chose to use the remainder of the time we had together to forgive her and to let go of those mistakes.

When we sat together one evening in her apartment, out of the blue she asked me, "Alice, do you believe that Jesus forgives sins?"

I answered, "Yes, Mama, I do."

"What about mine?" she asked me.

And I answered from the depth of my heart in forgiveness of what she had done that had affected and would continue to affect my life: "I believe that Jesus forgives ALL sins and that includes you. Jesus loves you, Mama."

President Benson also counseled: "Even when parents become elderly, we ought to honor them by allowing them freedom of choice and the opportunity for independence as long as possible. Let us not take away from them choices which they can still make. Some parents are able to live and care for themselves well into their advancing years and would prefer to do so. When they can, let them."

Not having had experience in observing others care for their elderly parents, I thought all decisions were made FOR them. But President Benson taught me that the elderly should make their own choices and that was what I did. Mama and I would sit together to make the big decisions for her life; all other decisions were made exclusively by her, and I honored them.

I had always honored Mama, having learned in my youth to do so. But President's Benson's words of what "honor thy mother and father" mean created a baseline for me to measure all my actions and words to Mama during her elderly years.

"To honor and respect our parents means that we have a high regard for them," he explained. "We love and appreciate them and are concerned about their happiness and well-being. We treat them with courtesy and thoughtful consideration. We seek to understand their point of view. Certainly obedience to parents' righteous desires and wishes is a part of honoring."

Ty Mansfield • Marriage and family therapist in Provo, and former president of North Star, a group that provides LDS resources on sexual orientation and gender identity.

In his October 2009 talk, "The Love of God," President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, second counselor in the governing First Presidency, talked about how of all the things we could be known for as Latter-day Saints — from "images of clean-cut missionaries, loving families, and friendly neighbors who don't smoke or drink" or "where the children sing songs about streams that talk, trees that produce popcorn, and children who want to become sunbeams" — the first thing we should be known for, the attribute that "above all others that should define us as members of his church, even as disciples of Jesus Christ" is the attribute of love.

"Because love is the great commandment, it ought to be at the center of all and everything we do in our own family, in our church callings, and in our livelihood," he said. "Love is the healing balm that repairs rifts in personal and family relationships. It is the bond that unites families, communities, and nations. Love is the power that initiates friendship, tolerance, civility and respect. It is the source that overcomes divisiveness and hate. Love is the fire that warms our lives with unparalleled joy and divine hope. Love should be our walk and our talk."

Our love for God and our love for others of God's children, wherever they may be in their own personal journey of mortality, should be the defining attribute of Latter-day Saints.

"[Love] is the essence of what it means to be a true disciple: those who receive Christ Jesus walk with him. But this may present a problem for some because there are so many "shoulds" and "should nots" that merely keeping track of them can be a challenge," President Uchtdorf said. "Sometimes, well-meaning amplifications of divine principles — many coming from uninspired sources — complicate matters further, diluting the purity of divine truth with man-made addenda. One person's good idea — something that may work for him or her — takes root and becomes an expectation. And gradually, eternal principles can get lost within the labyrinth of 'good ideas.'

"This was one of the savior's criticisms of the religious 'experts' of his day, whom he chastised for attending to the hundreds of minor details of the law while neglecting the weightier matters."