Church was good today. I don’t say that every Sunday; some Sundays I think a strong case could be made for the merits of a paid clergy (“I’d like to bury this chest of money. I know this shirt is blue” — Dad Hyatt). Today was not one of those Sundays. Today I thought of the (numerous) areas in which I define “slacker,” but, more importantly, I thought that I could do something about them!
Our Stake presidency was reorganzied today (“stakes” are kind of equivalent to dioceses, so our stake president is similar to a Catholic bishop; he oversees about 4-7 congregations and their leaders, who we call bishops). Elder Zwick and Elder Anderson (kind of equivalent to Archbishops) came from Salt Lake City to accomplish this.
Since Dick was home to help with the kids, we were only 5 minutes late, which, in Johnson time, is about 15 minutes early. We headed straight to the best-kept secret in the St. Petersburg Stake — the primary room where the meeting is broadcast and kids can go crazy sit quietly, disturbing only other parents of similarly attentive children.
Elder Anderson asked the primary kids and teachers to stand and sing I’m trying to be like Jesus. That got Sally’s attention off her giraffe drawings; thanks to our FHE practicing, she did pretty well. Most of the adults experienced CSICS (can’t sing I’m crying syndrome) — I hate that!
Elder Zwick told a couple stories about President Hinckley (think of the Pope, only older, and, a Prophet). I felt warm inside, getting this glimpse of our prophet as a real man, a man of likes and dislikes, a man who “sends his love to the people of St. Petersburg, Florida.” Later I wondered what role these stories play in our lives and in our testimonies — the anecdotes we love to hear and share about everyday life in extraordinary lives.
Well, I’ll share one story and let you ponder it yourself: Richard and Jane, President Hinckley’s son and daughter-in-law, take him dinner often since his beloved wife died. One night Jane had made a wonderful dinner, and, as they saw that he was ready to eat, they sat down with him and shared the meal. Jane had prepared a casserole that had some spinach in it; President Hinckley dug in, moving the spinach to the side of his plate as he ate. Jane said,
“Dad, don’t you like spinach?”
“No.”
“Dad, you really should eat some of this spinach, it has a lot of iron in it,” said Richard.
“Dick,” said President Hinckley, “I’d just as soon eat a horseshoe.”
So my goals for the coming week are:
1) Read the scriptures and that new Ensign I got last week.
2) Pray, and not just that the kids will go to sleep quickly and stay asleep for a long time.
3) Avoid using the mean voice.
4) Stop nagging Dick to eat his vegetables.
Subscribe by email
Look how many comments I have–I think either you and I need to live closer to each other, talk to each other on the phone more, or something! Anyway, church was wonderful for me: I only went to the third hour because I have sick kids. I went to primary and played piano–which I love–and then came home. No infant car seat to haul around, no kids to wrestle in Sacrament meeting. That is a nice breather once in a while. Someday we’ll have no kids to look after in church, and by then, we’ll think it’s nice and…lonely, I bet.
In primary (sr. primary) the kids got out hymn books and sang all four verses of “I Know That My Redeemer Lives.” That is a beautiful song to hear kids sing, I tell you. I was worried my tear-filled eyes would deter me from playing. I think this is my theme song for the year. I’ve heard a lot of versions of it lately. I think it’s been played just for me
–tender mercy, if you know what I mean.
I didn’t know you were a Mormon, I was one once (converted, not raised). I even met President Hinckley.
So glad to hear you enjoyed church today – and it’s one more week you can put off meeting in some old folk’s center. I like your goals for the week. I’m going to add my own. 1- Pray for appreciation of my husband and kids, then treat them better. 2- Read some conference talks from last month’s Ensign. 3- Eat my own vegetables.
I liked it too. I liked the Sat evening one even more. I sat in an even better secret place – choir:) Steven watched Dylan who actually slept most of the time. I got out the Children’s Songbook CDs and Dylan is listening to “I’m Trying to be like Jesus” right now. He’s actually asleep by now, but I hear the faint sound of that song from his room.
Hi Marie,
i didn’t know you were (ever) a Mormon. small world, huh? did you join here in florida? before you met Brad? — wait, i gather from your blog that you and he are high school sweethearts? obviously, we didn’t talk about the really interesting stuff while you were living out here. i lived in Twenty-nine Palms when I was a kid. i always wanted to marry a high school sweetheart–i love high school movies! my sister married hers, but i didn’t really have a high school sweetheart.
Marcy, Tara, Tiffany–thanks for the comments; we’re trying to review our goals as a family each sunday when we do the calendaring. some of our goals are so annoying because we just need to DO THEM, you know?
so, we sang “We’ll bring the World his Truth” for FHE tonight after talking about Elder Anderson’s talk (in our st conf) about going to Finland and praying every night that he would get sent to England so he could stop trying to learn Finnish. i can’t sing that song without crying, and it’s not like i want to be all mushy!!
[...] knowing that Spot is named after the dog. (What’s more, President Hinckley calls HIS son Dick). And there are other possible permutations: Richard if he’s being stuffy or Dickie if I feel [...]
[...] trivia, but I know, I feel, and always felt, when I listened to him speak or as I read his words or heard about his life, that he was a man of [...]