What did you use to do to keep yourself entertained during a fast and testimony meeting?

If you have a Nook or Kindle, bring it.

If not:
- Picture everyone in wild underwear.
- Make up naughty lyrics to the hymns.
- Swap certain four-letter words into the standard testimony speech.
- Tally the number of times anyone bears their testimony of JC himself (other than the standard closing).
- Do a pagan ritual in your head.
- Craft a murder mystery in your head (like Clue), using the people in the ward, the church building, and whatever's handy that might work as a weapon.

I hated F&T, but the loonies were entertaining. We had one who regularly bore testimony about crop circles, aliens, and the Second Coming. We had another who talked about how everything with the letter "D" was bad because that's what the word "devil" started with.

And just what is a pagan ritual, anyway ?

Most of them were surprisingly similar to the Christian rituals that later took their place.

Well...I certainly think so. Having been a Mormon and now being a Pagan, I know which I find preferable. :)

(I can explain what various ones are -- per your question -- but this isn't the proper venue for it.)

The iPhone changed SM in general for me. I only lasted a couple of years as a TBM after the iPhone was invented. Towards the end I openly referred to myself as an 'Angry Birds Member.' Meaning I went and played angry birds for three hours.

Finally, I realized that I could play Angry Birds at home and not be judged for it.

Then I realized that TSCC was a load of crap.

Nothing...I just accepted the pure hellish boredom that I had grown up to. I hated every minute of it from day one. I hated the same 5 people that got up every time..ugh.

I used to find different ways to add up the columns of numbers on the hymn board.

In one ward we we unfortunate to be members of we had a lady who would get up each ft day and start out about how grateful she was for her husband and kids and then launch, "I don't know what I would if I were not a member of this church," and then cry for the next five minutes and walk away bent and sobbing. My wife and I would make up the end to rest of the sentence each month on the way home. "I'd be a hooker turning tricks on Hollywood Blvd.," or "I'd be a homeless meth head in San Bernardino," or "I'd be a single mom on welfare living in a trailer at a garbage dump in Memphis." It was sad.

FAT meetings at BYU were the worst. The second the bishop would turn the time over to us, it would be a mad rush to the pulpit. Maybe I'm just cynical, but I always saw it as each person's personal dating ad campaign.

They would get up there and try to be funny, spiritual, and announce how great they were to attract the guys or girls in the ward.

I would take notes on the crazy stuff people said. Sometimes there were people I couldn't write fast enough to get it all on paper.
I would do sketches of them. Kind of like a story board. I would write the theme of the meeting at the top of the page. Have you ever noticed how the first couple of people set the stage for a theme?
I liked to pick out points where they were competing. like with kids, trips, temple attendance.
Who had the biggest sob story.
Who seemed angriest.
Who I thought would be next to leave the church.
The possibilities are endless. It's quite funny to go back and read these later. The people who get up there usually talk about the same topic over and over, month after month.

Will someone please tell me what Fast & Testimony Meetings has to do with a 24 person, full combat, gladiator tournament?

Quite a few parralels between the Hunger Games and mormonism, actually.
Both are about totalitarian societies which stress obedience and sacrifice.
No free will.
Individuality vs those in power.

JL did an outstanding job, by the way. Excellent movie!

Yesterday I only heard one woman testify of her love for Jesus Christ. She also told everyone she almost left this life a couple months ago and if it wasn't for her children, she wouldn't be here. She didn't give credit to the church. What I found totally unforgivable was that this woman sat there all alone after the meeting was over. Not one person went to offer her any love or support, except for me. She's the bishop's sister, and not one member went to her! I don't even know this woman, and I felt her pain. I hope she gets it together soon and finds peace in other places. A real loving group of people...unbelievable.

At church, you can get away with nookie and something more on-one...

The barnes & noble Nook escriptures take on a new meaning for the very self-indulging scriptorian. With its touch screen, readers will manipulate digitally, touching that very sensitive screen in an act I call "Rasterbation".

No word from the LDSinc whether the youth will be given pamphlets and instructions not to rasterbate in church, or at home (especially using wifi instead of wifey).

The favorite e-hymns for rasterbators everywhere?

Hold To The Rod. and Come Come, Ye Saints.

I think I spent most of my time in my latter years rolling my eyes and angrily sighing at the mothers who would shove there kids up there and force them to say "I know the church is true." Haha most of the kids would go up and say "I'd like to bare my testimony, I know this church is true, I love my heavenly father, and my brothers and sisters too." Lol I remember when I first bore my testimony as a little girl and I asked my sister if it had to rhym!

Will someone please tell me what a Fast & Testimony Meeting has to do with a 24 person, full combat, gladiator tournament?

Fast = hunger, get it?

Now I do, thank you ronas :-)

I used to space out on the knots in the paneling. I went to a funeral a while back and even after 30 years my favorite knot hole is still there.

Damn what torture! If only the kindle had been invented back then.