In non-fasting we approach thee

Yesterday was the first Sunday of the month, and therefore it would, under ordinary circumstances, have been fast Sunday. It was stake conference, however, and therefore fast Sunday was not held yesterday, but was held the previous Sunday.*

Can someone explain to me why we move fast Sundays if they conflict with stake conferences? (Or any conferences, really—if i recall correctly they move for ward conferences, and they’d certainly move if a regional conference was held on that day, and everybody experiences such a move at least twice a year when fast Sundays move for general conference.) Yeah, there’s the whole testimony meeting thing, but as far as i can tell there’s no absolute requirement that a ward needs to meet in fasting to hold a testimony meeting—why can’t a ward hold a testimony meeting once a month regardless of the fasting schedule, and let everybody know for a certainty when fast Sundays are without consulting the stake calendar?

I mean, it makes sense to me—and this is coming from someone who, as i’ve posted before, has never had a spiritual experience connected to fasting, so i don’t really have a stake (pun!) in this—to attend conferences in a state of fasting, but we rather consistently don’t do that. Why not?

(Or maybe it’s actually a conspiracy to get people to look at the stake calendar. In its own way, that makes more sense than any other conjecture i’ve been able to come up with.)

* I have a relative-in-law who insists that the practice of pushing fast days to the preceding, rather than the following, Sunday is a Bad Thing, and that it may even be proof of local apostasy. I may post more on that whole thing in another post sometime.