I almost succumbed to this yesterday. I was up at 6:00 AM and got dressed and over to the church by 7:00 AM for bishopric meeting which went for an hour. Then we had ward council and welfare committee meeting at 8:00 AM and 9:00 AM and each was an hour. Church started at 11:00 AM and that's 3 hours long. Afterwards, there were a few people to set apart and then I helped out with entering tithing and other donations from about 2:30 PM until 4:00 PM. I stopped home for a minute so I could get breakfast (one hot dog) and lunch (another hot dog). I was a few minutes late getting to my 4:00 home teaching appointment. When I got there, I knocked and nobody answered. So I went home thinking I'd get a little break before 4:30 PM when my home teachers were supposed to come over but they showed up almost 20 minutes early. They left by 5:00 PM when I got a call from my 4:00 PM home teaching appointment saying we could come by then. We were there until 6:15 PM. I came home and had dinner and then went to some friends' house for a bit. As I walked to their house, I passed by one of my neighbors with whom I had another home teaching appointment scheduled for 8:00 PM in the evening. She reminded me of it and I stated we'd be there. But after getting over to this other family's house and spending some time with them, I completely forgot about the 8:00 PM home teaching appointment. I think I got home about 8:20 PM or so and we got the kids ready for bed. I'm sure that the thought of the missed home teaching appointment would not have crossed my mind at all the rest of the night, except that the lady whom I spoke with in passing earlier came by at 9:00 PM to see if everything was OK. Sorry Andersons! My home teaching companion was there and spent some time with them but I was M.I.A. So after apologizing to her at the door a few times, I called up my home teaching companion to do the same. It looks like I'll be making some cookies to help smooth over the gaffe.
As many of you know, Sundays are a day of rest so it would seem that I'm breaking the Sabbath. When I was younger and my dad served in a few bishoprics, I wondered about that. However, I think the day of rest actually has to do with what we each typically do on a daily basis. Cooking, cleaning, working and playing are activities that we all do daily. Sundays are set aside as a day for us to pause from those types of activities and focus more on those activities that will help build the kingdom of God, which include church service and meetings. With that said, I'll tell you that being to so many meetings really makes me miss my family. I find that I want to spend more time with them when I come home from a long day like yesterday. In fact, when we were over at our friends' house, I felt like I had to do something that was not meeting-oriented so I played Mother-May-I and Red Light/Green Light with some of the kids. It was just the break I needed.
Serving in the Church is lots of fun, though. I'm learning a few things about myself. I find that meeting new people is a lot of fun, and that different kinds of people come from different kinds of backgrounds and have different kinds of experiences and stories to share. They have different kinds of challenges and different kinds of blessings. But we're all part of one family and we all have something good to offer to the family members we come in contact with daily.
5 comments:
Great post! I always wonder where "a day of rest" fits in for Sundays.
Wow...what a day! It's a good thing that you are such a great guy and that you have such a supportive wife. I give Ryan a bad time if he schedules too many home teaching appointments on Sunday...sheesh I should be better! BTW-my kids loved your pretzel and marshmellow idea...thanks for the idea it was a big hit!
I hate meetings and I think we could cancel half of them and the work would go forward faster. It takes a really good meating to be better then no meating at all.
I recall those busy Sundays and often wondered the same thing. Sounds like your turn for a priesthood lesson of "15 min HT visit is long enuff!" Brevity is the key to good communication. (quote by some famous person)
You have a good attitude! Sometimes I murmur when my husband is gone all day to meetings on Sunday. I agree that it's a good day to focus on building the Kingdom of God, but I also agree that the meetings need to be well organized so they're productive and not a "we're doing this because we have to (waste of time)". We're all human and just doing our best I suppose =).
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