9 People and 8 Prayers

Today I had a new experience. I have attended church meetings in various chapels in the US and Mexico. Some were old and others newer, in Cleveland we met in a converted office building, while at Ricks and BYU we used ordinary college classrooms as meetinghouses, I even went to church in a recreation room while working at Yellowstone National Park, but today was the first time I ever attended church in someones home.

It was an actual sanctioned meeting. There are so few members in India that the branches are very spread out. Because of the distances and costs involved in getting to the meeting house the mission presidency recently started a program of home groups based on area that meet together in a member home three weeks a month and the whole branch gathers for Fast Sunday. So this morning Mom and I took a taxi over to an apartment building about 15 minutes away and attended service with 7 other people. We met in the living room and dining room of the hosts. There was only one sacrament tray for bread and one for water. We had hymn books but no music and I'm not really sure we were a group at their best in acapella form. It was an ultra casual setting but the youngest person there was the hosts sixteen year old son so it was also very quiet. When you are passing the sacrament to such a small group it only takes a minute and doesn't really give you much reverent time to ponder, so when they are done they continue to stand by the table for a couple of minutes quietly. I'm not sure it's exactly standard but it did cause me to really think hard and wonder if I was taking that sacred ordinance for granted.

So how do 9 people cover opening and closing prayers on three meetings plus the sacrament prayers? The same person says both sacrament prayers and the closing prayer, you skip one of the prayers and just about everyone else says one of the remaining prayers. The same u brother conducts all three meetings and the same sister conducts all the music. They are good people and you could definitely feel the spirit there. The brother who was presiding, conducting and teaching sunday school is from Orem and here on a one year assignment. His wife visits ocassionally and he returns for short visits ocassionally as well, but most of the time he is here alone. He was nice enough to give us a ride back to the hotel since I hadn't properly anticipated not being close enough to a main road to get a taxi back. It was very nice of him to share his car and driver with us.

It was nice to be there after the misadventures of the last two weeks, but it definitely makes me miss the conveniences and comforts of my home ward. It's weird to think that my sixteen year old has been to hundreds of youth activites, release time seminary, youth conference, temple trips, boy scout camps, and some things he did not want to go to. Meanwhile Rashad has had hardly any of those opportunities simply because of where he was born. I bet he would jump at the chance to attend some of the things my boys had to be pushed to attend. Life is weird.