On the sweetness of Mormon life.

You are at a tiny little branch in a tiny town on the snowy plains.  You are there with your father-in-law.  None of you have been here before, you are visiting him while he is a on a work detail in this place.

You left with plenty of time because of the snow, so he gets into a long discussion with the Branch President.  Two texts come in–the two speakers for the service are snowed in.  Why don’t you talk then, the Branch President asks him.  He does.

On the sweetness of your second primary program this year.

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On the sweetness

You have a new missionary speak.  Brand new.  He is terrified.  He reads his talk, eyes glued on the page.  He starts with jokes.  Very deadpan, since his eyes are glued to the page.  It somehow makes them very funny. Your bishop is shaking with laughter.

Then he gets to the serious part.  He is testifying and pouring out his soul to the wooden stand and the piece of typed paper on it.  He still can’t raise his eyes.  It moves you.

On the sweetness of Mormon life.

Your speaker at Church is a hardbitten, no-nonsense type who just got back from 6 months of hardbitten, no-nonsense type highly paid contract work in an African country where the Church has no presence (and is not allowed to).  To take the sacrament, he had to get permission from a branch president in another country several hundred miles away using WhatsApp and Google Translate.  Saturday mornings he read the Bible with a 7th Day Adventist fellow contractor.  Sundays he sang hymns, blessed his own sacrament, then had “2 Apostles speek at every meeting.”  He said he had a favorite picture from his trip he wanted to show us.  It was a picture of a white plate with a rip of bread on it, a white teacup with water, both on a white napkin.  He started to cry.

On the sweetness…

A daughter gave me a neatly hand-lettered booklet with a handsewn binding that contained a guide to morse code.

My deacon gave me an arduino that he had programmed a morse code fathers’ day message into.

I painstakingly translated it with the help of the booklet.

The message was B O O G E R

On the sweetness of Mormon life.

The young man bashfully starts his talk by making eye contact with the lectern.  He says, I gave a really good talk two years ago for mothers’ day so the bishop asked me again.  The thing is, my mom wrote that talk.

On the sweetness of Mormon life.

You are driving to St. George probably for the first time when you see a sign for a town coming up.  Its called Kanarraville.

Hey, one of your daughters says, I think that’s where Elder Hollands talk happened.

She’s right, so you put it on.

The town is beautiful from the road.  There is a storm, the black clouds heaped up in great piles over the mountains and silver sheets of rain.  Meanwhile Elder Holland’s sonorous voice from the speaker.

Don’t give up, boy.  Don’t you quit.

 

 

On the sweetness of Our life.

You make one of the last sessions at the old Provo Temple before it all comes down.  You have not been there since you were in college many years ago.  There are swarms of people.  It is a reverent  madhouse.  You could only wish that it were the old endowment to go with the old temple, for just this once.  When you come out at twilight, the lake and the mountains and the clouds mount up in layers of blue and purple behind the dim white of the fountain.

You meet with old friends.

You drive home directly to your stake conference.  Old friends there too.

On the sweetness…

In your unusually quiet family ward sacrament, one young fellow abruptly stands on the bench and gives just one bellow.

As long as there is a primary program, the Church will not fall.

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A man in Elders Quorum volunteered he was cleaning up after his kids.  The way he cleaned up their chicken mcnuggets is he popped them in his mouth.  An hour old, they were disgusting.  He says he craves fresh chicken mcnuggets, they are a real temptation for him, but no wonder they sit so heavy on his stomach.  Once they are no longer hot, he can taste how nasty they are.

Sin, he said, is chicken mcnuggets.

A fourteen-year old boy is speaking church.  He shows his broken wrist. “I broke it diving back to first base,” he said.  “I was safe,” he adds.

“Now I can’t play baseball.  Or my cello.  Or”–he hangs his head–“play video games.”

“I was bored so I’ve just been sleeping a lot.”  Pause.  “I didn’t know seminary was so spiritual!”

On the sweetness of Mormon life.

Your younger kids offer you a magazine they made.  “Thanks!” you say.  “That’ll be a dollar,” they reply.

Your wife calls the sister missionaries to find out what time they want to eat on Thursday.  After they are done eating, they tell us that we had the day wrong.  Our appointment isn’t until next week.  “See you then,” they chirp.

You pass out writing assignments for Sunday School and so you also pass around a small tub with pens in it.  When it comes back to you, a couple of jokers have tossed in some dollar bills.

You are deacon watching

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There was talk this General Conference about working in more Holy Week and Easter activities to our liturgical calendars.  I will have more to say on that later.

General Conference has always been part of my personal liturgical calendar.   (more…)