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In this Sunday, June 22, 2014, photo, Kate Kelly, the founder of Ordain Women, a prominent Mormon women's group, walks with supporters to the Church Office Building of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during a vigil, in Salt Lake City. Kelly could find out Monday if she will be excommunicated from her church. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Rick Bowmer

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Kate Kelly (center) and a group of about 200 feminist women are denied entrance to an all-male meeting of Mormon priesthood holders during the evening session of the two-day lDS Church conference Saturday, Oct. 5, 2013, in Salt lake City. The Ordain Women group marched from a nearby park to a standby line at outside the meeting Saturday evening to highlight what they perceive as gender inequality. The group had previously been denied their request for tickets. The all-male meeting is being broadcast live around the world for the first time ever. Kate Kelly, the group's founder, said that's a good first step but not enough.In a statement, church officials said millions of women do not share the views of this small group and find their efforts divisive. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

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OGDEN — The feminist group Ordain Women plans to converge on an Ogden LDS stake center for Saturday evening’s general priesthood session of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The group, which refers to itself as “Mormon women seeking equality and ordination to the priesthood,” is inviting its members to gather between 5:30 p.m. and 5:45 p.m. Saturday at the Rock Cliff Stake Center, 1000 Suncrest Drive. They will then, as a group, seek admittance to the 6 p.m. priesthood session being broadcast there.

The Ordain Women movement first made headlines last October by marching on Temple Square in Salt Lake City and attempting to gain entrance to the males-only priesthood session at the church’s twice-yearly general conference. The group is asking for the church to begin ordaining women to the priesthood. In the LDS faith, only males age 12 and older may be ordained.

At the church’s April conference, the group again converged on Temple Square to request admittance to the priesthood meeting.

This time around, rather than going to the church’s headquarters, Ordain Women is encouraging its supporters to request entrance to the priesthood session at their local church buildings, where the meeting is broadcast. The session can also be viewed on television here in Utah.

Mary Ellen Robertson, an Ogden representative of Ordain Women, said organizers have chosen two sites along the Wasatch Front and invited their supporters to meet there. Those in the Ogden area will meet at the Rock Cliff Stake Center. Those in Salt Lake and Utah counties will gather at Brigham Young University’s Marriott Center in Provo.

Robertson, an Ogden spokeswoman for Ordain Women, acknowledges that some women might feel uncomfortable attempting to attend alone — or go to their own stake center, where they may know many of the men there.

“We selected a building where we could meet together,” Robertson said. “This is for folks who wanted to go as a group. It can be a little intimidating to go alone.”

Melissa Martinez, co-organizer of the Ogden action, says she has no idea how many supporters will join them. So far, they have about 10 people who have declared their intent to attend the Ogden priesthood meeting.

“But that’s better than I thought, because until this week I thought it would just be my co-coordinator and me — I thought it would just be us two,” Martinez said.

Martinez says the Rock Cliff Stake Center was chosen because it’s her co-coordinator’s home stake, a regional church organization made up of local congregations (called wards).

Martinez expects to be admitted to Saturday night’s priesthood session in Ogden.

“I’m pretty confident we’ll get in,” she said. “Last October, when the church decided to broadcast the priesthood session on television into homes, they sent out a letter saying if women insist on being admitted at stake centers, go ahead and let them in.”

However, Martinez said their intent is not to disrupt the meeting.

“If it becomes disruptive, we don’t want that, and we’ll leave,” Martinez said.

Martinez said her group doesn’t want to take away from the spirit of the meeting, but simply to attend the meeting, and be instructed along with the men.

“The idea is like the civil disobedience of the ’60s with the Civil Rights movement,” she explained, “but with that Mormon flavor of being polite and nice all the time.”

The Ordain Women movement was started by Kate Kelly and other feminists on March 17, 2013, the 171st anniversary of the founding of the LDS women’s auxiliary Relief Society. Kelly was excommunicated from the church this past June.

Robertson says this change in tactic — spreading out to the local meetinghouses — is a natural progression of the movement.

“I guess to get the initial message out, we wanted to go where Mormonism is headquartered,” she said. “We’re taking it to the local level now — that’s where the conversation also needs to be held. We’re trying to initiate those conversations on a local level, where we live.”

Following Saturday’s priesthood session, Martinez says the Ogden Ordain Women supporters will host a “linger longer” — a traditional informal social gathering after a church meeting — at the home of her co-organizer of the event. But she admits a part of her would like to attend the Salt Lake and Utah County group’s meeting at the Marriott Center.

“I’m a little jealous of them,” she said. “They’re having an ice cream social after the meeting, at Kate Kelly’s parents’ house.”

Contact Mark Saal at 801-625-4272, or msaal@standard.net. Follow him on Twitter at @Saalman. Like him on Facebook at facebook.com/SEMarkSaal.