My Mom attended an in person LDS sacrament meeting today; her first since the church has closed back in March. Her ward has hosted zoom meetings and met once for an outdoor parking lot meeting (smoke from wildfires and a heat wave put a permanent ka-put to further outdoor fun).

Every person was required to wear a mask. People were seated every other row and spread out. The men acted as ushers to assure that people were not too close to each other.

Sacrament has been modified. The priests did not wear gloves, but spray their hands/arms with disinfection. They do this in front of the congregation before each prayer. Bread is still broken and is placed into its own plastic disposable container. Each deacon/ph passer carries two trays. One has a set of bread containers and the other is empty to carry away the disposable bread containers.

Members never touch or pass trays. Each row stands up when cued by the deacons and they remove their masks. The deacon can service each person because every other pew/row is empty. They replace their masks after partaking and sit down. This is repeated over and over until everyone has been served :)

The water is similar with a second tray to carry the used disposable cups.

My Mom said that SM was normal as usual with announcements, invocation and benediction with two speakers. She said it looked half full so I am thinking 50 people. She mentioned that members can still dial in their assigned zoom if they don't feel safe (we will see how long LDS Corp tolerates this).

One final observation. No singing is permitted- I kid you not! Instead each member opens a hymnal and silently reads the words while the pianist plays the melody.

Now I thought this was only done for the Sacrament hymn. NO!!!
They do this 3 times during the SM (opening,sacrament, closing). OMG!

That's the distinct advantage mormons possess over all the untrue churches, that they have a living prophet to guide them!

All the other churches have to rely on the CDC. Poor saps!

COVID transmission and the avoidance of it are not my areas of expertise, but it would seem that a vocalist could stand at the microphone, or nowhere near the microphone if the person had a legitimate solo voice, maintain at least a fifteen-foot distance from everyone else, and could sing the hymns as solos. Such would seem less contrived than would staring at a page of the hymnal while listening to the hymn as played on piano or organ. If that were unacceptable, the vocal solos could be recorded and played during Sacrament Meeting either as audios or as videos.

I suppose I should be glad they're observing safety measures.

LD$,Inc. has an app which contains the sheet music for their hymns, but also contains audio files of each hymn. Depending on the language, that audio file could be just the accompaniment or include a choir singing. For English, most if not all include the choir. All they would have to do is have somebody hold their phone up to the microphone ans play the app.

That would certainly be preferable to hearing the organist drone on while staring at a page in the hymnal, but sometimes the local touch is nice.

Perhaps.

But I have seen and heard some surprisingly good music in wards over lo these many years and would regret seeing even that "correlated."

Music is one of the few media that can convey a sense of the numinous despite something as oppressive as Mormonism.

Why can't the congregation just hum the hymns? Seems kind of silly to silently read the words.

Just when you think church can't get even more depressing...

I remember that singing is what caused a large-scale Covid transmission among a choir's members early on in the pandemic. Singing can send the virus over a good distance.

I personally would not lower my mask to ingest a cube of bread (sorry, the sacrament.)

Nor would I lower my mask for any generic feast of Wonder Bread and tap water.

A urinal is a good place for a hymnal.

I have it on good authority that the dead are very pleased with the new sacrament meetings. There are places for them and they don't have to endure awful droning hymns but just relaxing hymns. Acceptance of baptisms, endowments and sealings have hit the roof!

This type of meeting and numbers is the perfect time to substitute lemon juice or Sprite in a few sacrament drink cups.

Really livens up a meeting when the right person gets one of them.

Normal times, German Black Bread, Bagels or Donuts are a real eye opener in the bread tray.

messygoop Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My Mom attended an in person LDS sacrament meeting
> today; her first since the church has closed back
> in March. Her ward has hosted zoom meetings and
> met once for an outdoor parking lot meeting (smoke
> from wildfires and a heat wave put a permanent
> ka-put to further outdoor fun).
>
> Every person was required to wear a mask. People
> were seated every other row and spread out. The
> men acted as ushers to assure that people were not
> too close to each other.
>
> Sacrament has been modified. The priests did not
> wear gloves, but spray their hands/arms with
> disinfection. They do this in front of the
> congregation before each prayer. Bread is still
> broken and is placed into its own plastic
> disposable container. Each deacon/ph passer
> carries two trays. One has a set of bread
> containers and the other is empty to carry away
> the disposable bread containers.
>
> Members never touch or pass trays. Each row stands
> up when cued by the deacons and they remove their
> masks. The deacon can service each person because
> every other pew/row is empty. They replace their
> masks after partaking and sit down. This is
> repeated over and over until everyone has been
> served :)
>
> The water is similar with a second tray to carry
> the used disposable cups.
>
> My Mom said that SM was normal as usual with
> announcements, invocation and benediction with two
> speakers. She said it looked half full so I am
> thinking 50 people. She mentioned that members can
> still dial in their assigned zoom if they don't
> feel safe (we will see how long LDS Corp tolerates
> this).
>
> One final observation. No singing is permitted- I
> kid you not! Instead each member opens a hymnal
> and silently reads the words while the pianist
> plays the melody.
>
> Now I thought this was only done for the Sacrament
> hymn. NO!!!
> They do this 3 times during the SM
> (opening,sacrament, closing). OMG!

I can only think of one word todescribe this
LUDICROUS!!!(check my spelling)