For those of you who are LDS, think of your most memorable sacrament meetings. Now I'm not talking about the most uplifting spiritual ones. Those are good, but I'm talking about the "really good" ones. For example, one time when I was a kid, a guy who was speaking dished out ice cream and gave it to the bishopric while they were sitting on the stand. "Chocolate syrup or caramel?", he asked. The bishop didn't know what to do, so he just stuck the bowl under his seat. He probably should have eaten it--it wasn't fast Sunday after all. I remember in the mission field many times when blatant false doctrine was taught from the podium and we had to discretely "distract" our investigators so they wouldn't hear what was being taught. And of course, what would sacrament meeting be without our beloved little ones. Kids always add to the excitement of the meeting. Especially now that I am a parent of four, sacrament meeting isn't complete if there isn't some screaming, crawling under the pews, and the occassional run away child.
Well today I was able to attend sacrament meeting for the first time since arriving in Afghanistan. About a month ago the Afghanistan military district of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was formed and a district presidency and district council were called. Earlier this week, I met with a member of the district council who was in Herat on business as well as another LDS guy who we discovered here in Herat. We were given permission to start having an organized sacrament meeting. So today (remember Fridays are Sundays here) we had our first meeting. It was by far the smallest and quickest sacrament meeting I have ever been to. Even the smallest ones I ever attended as a missionary in Argentina were larger than this. We prayed, shared a message (I threw a little false doctrine in just for fun) and then took the sacrament. It was a neat experience to be able to kneel, in a very small and quiet setting, and bless and partake of the sacrament.
I think next week I am going to serve ice cream!
3 comments:
I had heard that you hadn't found anyone you could meet with, so I was glad you found someone!
Object lessons can be so effective! To this day, I think all of you boys (as well as Mom and I) remember the ice cream incident. I'm glad I wasn't Bishop at the time. Is this the place where you meet? I'm glad that you found someone and a group to get together with.
Love, Dad
This blog made me laugh. You are a good writer with a good sense of humor. I'm so glad you have someone to meet with and that the
afghan district of the church is aware of you. I love you very much.
Love, Mom
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