My day in church yesterday

I had a couple of small experiences I thought were worth mentioning. The first came in sacrament meeting. We had the regular speakers, our fast Sunday will be the week after conference.

One speaker was our ward mission leader, cool guy, not stuffy or inhibited in the least. His talk included a “dream” he had, a version of Lehi’s dream. In his dream he was spending an evening in the spacious building – there was a party with dancing and he was rocking out. He named several other couples or families in the ward that were there with him, everyone having a good time.

Then he said he took a break and went out on the patio – overlooking the depths of the valley and the mist of darkness. There he saw many people trying to work their way through the darkness to find the iron rod. At that time all he wanted to do was to run out to those people and help them to the rod (then obviously tied the story to his missionary message).

I thought it was cool that his talk implied that we all spend time, at one time or another, in the spacious building. It only makes sense, but I was surprised that he actually made that point in church. It kind of took the ‘self-righteous’ edge off.

I found myself sitting there thinking “I can see myself honestly believing in this church” in the same way that I believe in or have faith in my kids. I really believe that the church as a whole will “find its way” and do many good things in the process. “I have faith in this church!” Sure some people may not understand the fullness of my meaning when I say that, but isn’t the optimism what counts? I can pair this with my statement that “the gospel IS truth” (my understanding of Mormon ideology equates the two – as in Mormon Scientist “if it’s true it’s part of the gospel”) and maybe even sound like a TBM! (Not that it’s important to sound any particular way, but I got a kick out of it.)

Then in Sunday school our lesson included a story and discussion of the foundation of the Salt Lake temple. After two years of work the foundation showed cracks, and ultimately needed to be completely torn out and rebuild from the beginning. (BTW my old bishop was teaching the lesson.) One of the teacher’s comments really struck me –- “sometimes, we may discover similar cracks in our personal foundations.”

Of course around here we know how true that statement is. When we think we’re founded on “solid ground”, then learn that some of our ideas are the result of personal opinion and culture — it can be quite unsettling to say the least. It’s not easy or pleasant to “rebuild your foundation from scratch”, but sometimes that is exactly what is needed.

I was very surprised to hear any reference to that in Gospel Doctrine class.

Anyway, overall it was an interesting week for me at church.