and thinking it felt like some kind of alternate reality?
The songs were the same. The words were the same, even on open mic night. The sacrament prayer was the same, but the bread was always different. All the faces were different, but they all did the same thing, ward after ward. There was the sacrament table, but it was on the other side.
I used to notice stuff like that because the meetings were so mindbogglingly awful I had to entertain myself.
ETA: When I was growing up, church attendance was absolute. You went. There was no discussion, even on vacation. Every year I would spend 2 weeks in Idaho and the summer in SLC. My dad worked for the COB, so "The Church" was waking, breathing church. I'd have to travel with him sometimes, so that's the background.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/2019 05:56PM by Levi.
at least when I was growing up. If we weren't at home, we didn't go. BUT when I was older, I took a nonmormon friend of mine (or he took me so I didn't have to drive there) in Seattle. It was, like you say, but oh so different. That was one of the strangest fast and testimony meetings I ever attended. It was all about missionary work--getting your neighbor involved. That is all every one of the people talked about. It was so weird. But then I always thought F&T meeting was strange.
I once went to a ward in Nevada where the member of the bishopric conducting had a beard. The men had a variety of colored shirts and many people actually sang the hymns instead of just mouthing the words like most Utah wards. Otherwise it was about the same - speakers reading conference talks, restless children, boring lessons and etc.
One of the first wards that I served as a missionary, the entire congregation sang the hymns like my Dad. He sang off-key and monotone. It sounded horrendous. I had to go the men's room and flush the toilet a bunch of times to hide my laughter. Remember that you're not supposed to laugh too much after going through the temple.
BTW- I sing just as bad as my Dad used to. :D
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/18/2019 03:36PM by messygoop.
what % of attendees had their faces in their phones/nooks/ipods?
I think Shinehah was either in an alternate reality, -or- attending a church that bought a surplus ex-ChurchCo building, but they forgot to change the signage. Really.
Pretty sure it was a Ward of the church headquartered in SLC since my TBM sister took me there. Maybe they hadn't had a 'visiting authority' for a while to keep them on the correct path.
Yes! We used to visit different wards quite frequently and agree with your observations.
I always made my way to the nursery where there would always be hidden (if you just looked hard enough) one of those huge containers of goldfish crackers. Would load up on goldfish.
My father was on the High Counsel while I was in high school. In New England the chapels are far apart and it can take 2 - 3 hours to travel to wards at the farthest boundaries. I met lots of other teenagers around the stake during different stake youth events, so I would visit other wards with him when he went there to speak.
I got to hang out with my friends. My dad got a traveling companion. It was a good thing all around until my home ward got miffed about not being able to give me a calling because I was traveling so much. They made a new policy and put a stop to my traveling around the stake. Typical.
geekchick603 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > My father was on the High Counsel while I was in > high school. In New England the chapels are far > apart and it can take 2 - 3 hours to travel to > wards at the farthest boundaries. I met lots of > other teenagers around the stake during different > stake youth events, so I would visit other wards > with him when he went there to speak. > > I got to hang out with my friends. My dad got a > traveling companion. It was a good thing all > around until my home ward got miffed about not > being able to give me a calling because I was > traveling so much. They made a new policy and put > a stop to my traveling around the stake. Typical. > > It was certainly fun while it lasted.
How dare you spend time with your father while the church is trying to pull him away!
I too grew up in New England, and while I was a teenager, my father was also on the stake High Council. Don't know where you grew up exactly, I was in New Hampshire. But you are correct, it can take hours to get from one end of the stake to the other. If my Dad had an assignment on the other end of the Stake, he would leave at 6am and not be home until late afternoon sometimes. Even wards had huge boundaries. When my Dad and I would go home teaching, just visiting our families could take an entire Sunday afternoon and evening because our ward boundaries were so big.
I seriously can't remember meaningful differences between one and another. It was nice to compare the slight differences because it helped ward off boredom a bit.
Thankfully, my family did not attend church when we happened to be traveling. That was a relief.
I enjoyed it. Being a "new girl", I got a lot of attention from the boys. We would go there every summer, for a few weeks or longer. It was back in the day when there were ward activities, and when we got to be teen-agers and could drive, we had a lot of fun. There were more kids my age than in my home California ward.
Someone made the sacrament trays out of small branches, cut like logs, with a "T" for a handle. They used the paper cups, which weren't noisy, and more environmentally friendly than the plastic cups.
I used to feel like I was in the Twilight Zone, when I would go to a BYU ward which used a classroom, instead of a chapel. There was the table with the cloth, a teacher's podium with folding chairs behind it so the ward leaders could feel to be important, like they were sitting on a "stand", above the others. There was a piano, and not an organ, and some returned missionary would play, but no postlude or prelude. It made want to be doing my homework, instead of having church.
In pre-correlated days, you could find great differences between wards, since they were much more autonomous then. Each ward had its own way of doing stuff, and we would always remark to each other "that this or that ward does this, and our bishop doesn't allow it."
We always ALWAYS went to church while travelling. If we were just passing through town, we normally only stayed through sacrament meeting. But when we were visiting relatived we stayed all three hours without fail.
I remember one time we happened to be in Panguitch, Utah. It was High Council Sunday, and this stake High Council member gave a talk about the 12 Articles of Faith. Yes, TWELVE. He must have said it a dozen times. No one corrected him, or even seemed to notice except us. My mom got the biggest kick out of that.