PROVO — The numbers for the annual Brigham Young University Women's Conference only start to hint at the event's magnitude and diversity — two days, four general meetings at the Marriott Center, 95 different hourlong presentations and some 20,000 participants.

In fact, it's so big that a Deseret News attempt to stop and listen in for a few minutes at each of Thursday's 16 first-session presentations — all within the hour's allotment — couldn't be accomplished as hoped.

Stopping at 16 sessions in 10 different buildings across the Provo campus in just 60 minutes — well, that equates to three minutes and 45 seconds to listen, observe and move on to the next. Buildings where multiple sessions were presented would provide time-saving opportunities; long distances between spread-out sites would consume valuable time.

Traversing through campus, one sees the Women's Conference trappings — makeshift shuttle stops, snack shops, concessions booths and the massive foot-traffic movements between scheduled events.

Oh, and another tell-tale sign: All of the most convenient men's restrooms are temporarily marked as "women's."

Some sessions are standing-room only affairs, with attendees sprawled out in earshot outside entrances or moving to audio-equipped overflow areas.

The News started at 11 a.m. Thursday at the one off-campus conference site — an LDS chapel/cultural hall across 900 East from the BYU Conference Center. The first-stop topic: Making good media choices in the home.

Then on to the Conference Center for two sessions — coping with addictive behaviors and advice for improved financial stability — and then the Marriott Center for the blessings and benefits of temple worship.

A quarter of the sessions visited in a little more than a quarter of the allotted time, with some of the more remote session sites coming up.

Encouraging young-adult children to be out on their own was the first-session topic in the Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center, with a stretch of nearly 100 steps — first down and then (ugh!) back up afterward — to note the discussion of bringing God and the gospel into one's marriage, as presented in the Smith Fieldhouse.

In the Joseph Smith Building auditorium, the joy of the sabbath; in a Kimball Tower lecture hall, creating a heritage of happiness. After weaving through a patron-crowded BYU Bookstore complete with book-signings and conference-special displays, it's on to four sessions hosted in the Wilkinson Center — the Atonement and personal revelation, the strength of women, correcting with love, and the importance and influence of grandparents.

With about five minutes left in the allotted hour, it's off to the Harris Fine Arts Center for three sessions in the large halls — the consequences of abuse, replacing fear with faith and helping bear others' burdens through friendships. But one session was letting out early and other entrances had participants lining up more than a half-hour early for the next sessions — couldn't get in to any of the three.

And making the Clark Law Building for the Spanish session of "El Poder Infinito de la Esperanza" ("The Infinite Power of Hope") was hopeless, with the hour expired.

The attempt ends up being much like an hourlong taste-testing race — one morsel, one bite at a time — but at more than a dozen restaurants spread over 40-plus square blocks.

E-MAIL: taylor@desnews.com