Church News *Written July 20*

From our second week at church I’ve been helping out in the primary as their pianist. I was pretty sure I was going to get called, and we had a feeling Spencer might get called to the young men’s. Oh how wrong we were. I am now serving as second counselor in the primary as well as playing the ‘piano’ for them (it’s really a tiny electric organ). Spencer has been called as a Sunday School teacher for the 16/17 year olds and sometimes has the 12-15 as well. Spencer was in charge of speaking last Sunday in Sacrament meeting and I have been asked to speak this coming Sunday. As we still don’t have a car we have been relying on other members to give us a ride to church. The Bishop recommended a couple that live close to us and would have room for our small family in their vehicle. Sister O’Connor gave us a ride last Sunday, and we neglected to mention to her that Spencer was speaking and she picked us up a little later than we had agreed. I was of course nervous but Spencer was able to play it very cool. On the way to church she told us that she was speaking at church and was nervously preparing last minute, I thought it was ironic especially as his topic was preparation.

We got to church during the opening song and Spen went straight to the stand to get ready to give his talk. They were short on deacons so they asked Spencer to pass the Sacrament, he agreed and joined 3 other older gentlemen most of who rarely pass the sacrament. The Priest had to signal twice for them to stand up to the table and it was then that I knew it was going to be a bit of a gong show. Following the prayer and elderly gentleman passed the sacrament to the bishop and Spencer takes off to pass to the rest of the congregation. I guess he’d never noticed that you’re supposed to pass to the Priest’s first in this ward and the poor Priest looked after so longingly as Spencer took off to pass to everyone else.

Another odd thing they do in this ward is that a Priesthood holder stands at the door in the back and calls a deacon over if anyone is in the hallway that requires the sacrament. This gentleman was not there on Sunday and Spencer had never noticed this before, so instead of passing to his side of the Chapel, Spencer heads straight out into the hall through the loud creaky door without first passing to the Priest. If you can picture in your mind, Spencer doesn’t pass to the Priest and doesn’t pass to his half of the Chapel, but just takes off out the side door and nobody knows where he is going. I thought it was pretty amusing, especially because it all happened the exact same way for the water.

I presented my first sharing time as a member of the primary presidency on Sunday. It wasn’t a huge deal as the other counselor was going to be absent so she just gave me a memory game and asked me to lead that this last Sunday. Our Music leader was absent so I needed the game to last a bit longer so I put up more memory cards than I had planned on doing (the ABC’s of the gospel) and put up a pair for the whole alphabet instead of only half the alphabet as I had planned. Everything was going well and the kids were very patient and quiet and they listened to my directions. Only problem was that nobody was getting match and they kept turning over the same cards over and over again. I started to get anxious as it had been 15 minutes and only 1 pair had been matched. We were calling on teachers, bishopric members, and anyone who would please remember where a match was, but no luck. Part way through I asked the president who was right up there helping if we should leave some turned over to help the kids out. She didn’t think it was necessary so after 35 minutes of the memory game and only 3 matches, I bore my testimony and linked behind the organ. The President thought it went pretty well, and left the game up for next week. Hopefully it goes better. Love to all.