Posted by:
messygoop
(
)
Date: September 13, 2020 10:55PM
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!