Making the Most of It
Inspiration

A Visit to the Mormon Church I Could Support

It has been many years since I have attended the LDS (Mormon) Church and I am now in the twilight years of my life. By good fortune, I am still healthy for my age and am able to care for my adult daughter, Jamie, who was born with significant disabilities and cannot live alone. My wife, Leslie, who also enjoys good health, is by my side.

It is a Sunday morning and it snowed again last night. It’s been a generous winter of snow and with reservoirs sure to be filled with water from the runoff this spring, perhaps the local meteorologists won’t be so zealous at reminding all of us Utahans to conserve water since we live in a drought state when the hot summer months arrive. I dress and get my coat and boots on and head out to clear the walks and driveway, but not surprisingly, my kind neighbor, Darren, has already been doing that for me. An “NBA power forward” sized young man with an empathetic heart, to match his large body, he has been clearing my driveway before starting his own and is not far from finishing.

I greet him and before long we are done removing the snow in my corner of the neighborhood. He lingers a little and we talk some. I know he is a member of the local LDS ward and I feel all right talking about religion with him – he is just such a nice, accepting person and I am lucky to have such a fine neighbor to look out for my family and me. Still, I am quite shocked that he takes a bolder step in our conversation about the Mormon Church as he invites me to attend today. I really am surprised!

Darren tells me I will probably notice that the Mormonism the Church has adopted and that he tries to live himself is different than the version I endured before I quit attending. For some reason today, what he tells me is making me more than curious. I know Darren espouses many of the same liberal viewpoints that I embrace – a desire to love and respect people for who they are without judgement and condemnation and a wanting of equality among membership regardless of differences. He tells me I could just stay during the sacrament meeting if I want to, though he thinks I might find the second hour interesting. The third hour of meetings was dropped a few years back to allow members to have more family time. Before I fully realize it, I am agreeing to go.

I stomp the snow off my boots and enter the house, removing my winter gear at the tiled entry and proceed to mention to my wife, Leslie, that Darren has invited me to church today and that I am actually considering attending. I tell her more about the conversation I had moments ago outside and am amazed when she agrees to attend with me. What is in the air to cause this situation? Neither of us have attended Mormon religious services in such a long time!

I haven’t dressed up for a church meeting in such a long time, but I still do have some khakis and colored dress shirts in the closet along with a dozen ties from the days when I used to attend. Both Leslie and Jamie have some “church clothes” too – a skirt and sweater for my wife and some khakis and a blouse for my daughter. Soon, we are ready to go, but since we are retired and accustomed to not having to be any place at any particular time, it is obvious we will be at least a few minutes late.

We arrive at the ward building and park in a handicapped spot close to the door and walk in slowly with our daughter and sure enough, we are a little late. I can hear the congregation singing a verse from the opening song – “I am a Child of God” accompanied by the organ. This is much as I remember church, as that song is timeless for the Mormon community.

A middle-aged woman standing by the chapel entrance greets us warmly. My old Mormon self analyzes her appearance. She is wearing khakis and a very loud, colorful sweater. She sports several pairs of earrings and a bright blue streak of hair. She holds the remaining programs and offers us one as she points out a space in the center bench seating, four rows from the front. Some things never change in the LDS Church and as I expect, all the back rows are taken.

We start walking up the aisle to the seating space available on the fourth row and I see a leg extended out from one of the side benches belonging to somebody who is large and very tall. It’s Darren, obviously, and he is wearing his trademark blue jeans and boots. Boy, they have done something with the dress code around here! People seem to be wearing what suits them. I still see plenty of people dressed up, but there are a fair number in the congregation wearing more relaxed attire.

We continue walking down the aisle and I notice that not a single bishopric member is on the stand. They must all be out of town or something – the people I identify as the speakers are there, so the ward leadership must have made arrangements since they knew all three would be out that week. Still, it is pretty rare to be missing the bishop and his two counselors all on the same Sunday. They have just started the second verse of “I am a Child of God” and the chorister is putting her heart into as she leads the congregation in the hymn.

I guide Jamie toward the bench and we take a seat and I look down the aisle to see if I might know who we are sitting next to. There is a young family with a toddler and baby at the far end of the bench. Toward the center of the row is a lesbian couple holding hands! I do a double take and to my surprise, realize it is the same couple who I saw most weekdays last summer and fall, walking their dogs when I took Jamie to the park each morning. They talked to me about Jamie since one of them has a brother with a disability. They smile at her – she still draws the same amount attention from others as she did when she was a teenager in high school. As we are seated, the young lady closest to us leans over and whispers something in Jamie’s ear. It must be one of the pet phrases she likes because Jamie smiles and makes a happy noise.

The last verse of the hymn is coming to a close and an older gentleman is walking up to the podium. He approaches it as the organist and chorister take their seats and offers what I remember to be a pretty standard Mormon prayer. After he finishes and heads back down to the congregation, a middle-aged woman rises from end of the second bench at the side of the room and heads toward the podium and it confuses me a bit. She turns and starts addressing the congregation and it dawns on me that she is conducting sacrament meeting because she mentions that a calling has been extended to... I didn’t catch the name because I am caught off guard by the fact that there is a lady directing this meeting and I had no idea the LDS Church made a change to allow this. While I am getting over my shock, a man rises in the back and the ward members signify they sustain him by raising their right hands. The woman announces that the bishop now has a matter of ward business and she sits down in one of the chairs behind the podium.

A man on the front row wearing a dark suit, who can only be the bishop, rises and starts up to the steps to the podium. It appears he has been sitting with his family – a woman around his age and a couple of teenagers. I think that it is nice if they are allowing such a seating arrangement for ward leadership now.

As he turns to address the congregation at the podium, I notice three things about him that shock me about as much seeing a woman conduct sacrament meeting. First, he is sporting a nicely trimmed beard. Second, he is wearing a burgundy shirt. When I was in the bishopric decades ago, we were required to wear a white shirt and I recall it being a very strict rule. Still, the bishop appears very professional in what he is wearing. I notice a third feature that surprises me as well. On the lapel of his suit coat, there is a rainbow looking pin identical to the sort of accessory that one would dawn back in the years when the LGBT community was lobbying for equal rights. I don’t know it yet, but will find out in the upcoming week that the bishop wears that pin as a reminder to not single out a group of people to be treated as “less than” he is.

He smiles and greets the congregation warmly and proceeds to call a 12-year-old boy up from the congregation who is ready to move into the young mens organization. After a joke or two, the bishop mentions that the boy has chosen to become a deacon and he thanks him for it - no mention of worthiness is brought up as a requirement to serve. There is a sustaining vote and members of the congregation raise their hands to show their approval. The bishop and the boy return to their seats as the woman – she must be one of the counselors – rises and announces that the sacrament will now take place. The organist begins playing and the chorister leads us in the hymn “In Humility, Our Savior”. I always liked that one.

After the bread is broken and the hymn ends, a teenaged boy kneels to offer the prayer and he is very nervous doing it. His voice is shaky and I find myself internally cheering for him to make it through the prayer without making a mistake. I still have those prayers memorized from so many years of attending church in my earlier life and my heart sinks for him when I realize that he misses reciting one entire line of it. Surely, they will make him say the prayer again, but they don’t. Not a soul makes anything of it and I see the deacons rise and take their trays to pass the bread to the congregation.

Since I saw the woman conducting the meeting, I am not quite as surprised when I notice that the deacons consist of both young boys and girls and I watch as they reverently walk about the congregation sharing the sacramental bread. It’s a nice touch having all of them participate in this. Before long, they return to the front and encircle the table standing as they wait for the prayer on the water. I hear the voice of the girl offering it over the speakers and she recites it confidently, without error. The water is passed to the congregation and this part of the service ends with all of the young people returning to sit with their families.

The counselor returns to the podium to announce the rest of the program as Jamie is grabbing my arm for something. She has the hymnbook in her other hand and starts pushing it into my lap while opening it at the same time. I miss part of what the counselor is announcing and only catch that there will be a youth speaker and then something about a musical trio and the mention of the high councilor. I whisper in Jamie’s ear and put the hymnbook back in her own lap opened to “Put Your Shoulder to The Wheel” as she reads through the words excitedly.

An African American youth speaker approaches the podium with what looks to be a seminary manual in his hand and begins to talk about honesty. The way it goes tells me he either prepared the talk late last night or perhaps before church started – I don’t suppose I would have done much differently when I was at that age. Not long into his talk he says he would like to tell a story an early member of the church who possessed the traits of honesty and integrity as he opens the manual.

Now this is the part that blows me away… The story he reads is about William Law, publisher of the Nauvoo Expositor, the early paper I had been taught for the early decades in my life was “filled with anti-Mormon lies about the prophet Joseph Smith”. As I was transitioning away from the Church, I read it a few times and found that it presented Joseph Smith quite honestly at the time. I pondered on the courage of William Law, who really wanted nothing more than to be treated fairly and to have the truth exposed about polygamy and the prophet’s questionable activities. How unwelcome it would have been to laud the integrity of William Law back when I quit attending! Yet, here was a high schooler praising him for his efforts to be honest when it was so unpopular amongst the leaders in Nauvoo. The talk ends with an admonition from the teen that he hopes as we go throughout our lives, we can develop the honesty of William Law and have the courage to defend it.

Next, a young man gets up, perhaps returned missionary age, and begins talking about his service, but it was not sharing the gospel. This guy just completed two years of service in the Peace Corps. It’s not a long talk, but he shares some of the experiences he had serving in a third world country in Africa and it is very touching to listen to them. We still don’t know how good we have it living in the USA.

The talk ends and the musical trio heads to the front – I am assuming they are all members of the same family consisting of an older teenager and her parents. The mom seats herself at the piano while the dad and daughter get their instruments behind the choir seating. The man pulls out a trumpet and his daughter, an alto saxophone. They are VERY talented and the notes coming from the brass are powerful and beautiful. The piano accompaniment offers the right support and their rendition of the hymn “Abide with Me” is enjoyed by all in the congregation.

Now the high councilor gets up to speak. First, she thanks the trio for their music with some emotion in her voice. She then proceeds to share her talk entitled “Love – the First Law of Heaven”. It’s a great topic but the title of the talk catches me off guard. When I stopped attending church back in 2017, I recall speakers making quite a big deal about obedience being the first law of heaven and how important it was to yield to whatever the leaders taught – especially if it came out of a General Conference address. "Obey your leaders, even if they are wrong, and you will be blessed" was the mantra of that era. Times change. It is refreshing to hear that love of others has dethroned obedience – this can only assure that families are closer to one another in this newfangled Mormonism.

The high councilor closes her remarks, but before the chorister can begin leading the congregation in the closing hymn, the counselor conducting the meeting hurriedly steps up to the podium – she forgot to announce something. “Brothers and Sisters”, she says, “My apologies for forgetting this, but we received a letter from Church Headquarters I should have read at the beginning of this meeting. I would like to now because of its importance”. She begins the letter which reads as follows:

The counselor takes her seat and fittingly, we are led in the hymn “As I Have Loved You”. A young lady approaches the podium to offer the closing prayer. I bow my head as she bows hers. “Our Heavenly Parents”, she begins. I am thinking I will see if Leslie would like to stay for the next hour and see what that is like.

February, 2018