Sunday 15 February 2009

Late Night Ramblings

Dal made me go to bed early tonight. I guess he was tired or something and I had nothing better to do with my time.... so I went to bed. And then lay there...... lay there...... annoyed Dal with my inane chatter for a while - I "discussed" (he just lay there listening) why some people seem to have a bucketload of motivation and others (like me) have more than a bucketload of desire, but no motivation. It seems to me a bit unfair. But that's for a different post.

I finally decided to get up from bed and just talk at the blogosphere, because Dal went to sleep and the blogosphere NEVER sleeps (as far as I know, anyway).

So here I am, going to tell you all about my day (or part thereof). It involves a lot of Mormon lingo, so if you aren't Mormon and would like to decipher this post (exciting - it's like a secret code post) then you could go to www.mormon.org. OR you could completely ignore this post and I wouldn't be any the wiser, and you would have saved yourself a brain injury from reading it. I COMPLETELY understand. I have also taken the liberty to link certain words directly to the glossary found on Mormon.org.

ENOUGH. On to the real reason I am typing at midnight.

We attended our new ward today. In the time it has taken us to move to three different wards, I have come to realise the inevitable truths about LDS wards in Australia. They are as follows.

1. The Sunday School teacher is ALWAYS going to be either very dry or just plain crazy. So dry that you end up falling off your chair from doubling over in pain. OR so crazy that you want to hurt yourself to cease the endless dialogue between the crazy, the guy who thinks he's funny and the loud guy. This dialogue inevitably goes completely off the subject.

2. Despite telling myself before church that I am NOT to answer any questions, because it may seem a little overbearing to have the newbie take over the discussion..... I ALWAYS end up saying the most in lessons. And this is usually to the detriment of any future friendships that I may have struck up with the now disgusted Relief Society women.

3. I am going to be lucky to get one decipherable talk per month. Most talks from the pulpit will be either spoken in an accent so thick it may as well be in the speakers native language, or it's the Sunday School teacher speaking.... and he doesn't make sense at the best of times.

4. There will always be that man (or woman), who is usually older who believes that whatever he has to say is pure gold and any time he deems it necessary to talk, he will (by jingo) talk. And talk he does, on and on and on and on. And at the end of his story, you will have learned every single detail of his life up until that very moment. According to him every part of that story related to the gospel.

5. There will always be THAT family. and Dal, Hel and Bel will ALWAYS manage to sit right in front of them during Sacrament Meeting. You know the family, where the dad is probably sitting on the stand (either in the Bishopric or is the Sunday School teacher going to give a talk) and the mother is wrangling her six or so children. I give props to the mother, but WHY do we always manage to sit in front of that family in EVERY ward that we attend? Is this something to do with having a child now?

6. Despite all the crazies that come into our lives while attending these wards, we will always realise that it's not the people for whom we attend church, but the gospel and it's teachings. We will continue to nudge each other when the Sunday School teacher starts preaching false doctrine (unaware, of course) or when we hear a particularly good story from the old loud man. Because of all the unorthodox people that surround us, we learn to appreciate the people that eventually become our friends and allies in an ever increasing world of crazies.

Cheers to our new ward, that seems to have more young families than a last one. Hooray!

Early Morning Edit: It has been brought to my attention that we did indeed have a fantastic Sunday School teacher in my last ward. I completely agree with that and apologise Dennise! I guess in my haste to call someone crazy, I just plum forgot about all the GREAT Sunday School teachers!

LQ ready for church in mummy's church clothes

9 comments:

Unknown said...

What ward are you guys going to now? They are sure going to miss you in the Primary.

For the record, Dennise wasn't crazy or boring as a SS teacher. Just saying. Though with you being in Primary you didn't get to hear her lessons all that often.

Also, I'm glad that I'm not the only one that tells herself not to talk before church but that never happens. Rick always tells me that I need to ease our wards into the fact that I'll be doing most of the talking in SS and RS. Whatever. Being in Primary now that isn't as much of an issue.

Unknown said...

Oh, Helen, I'm so sorry you have one of THOSE Sunday School teachers. I'm what you might call "harmlessly crazy", and I don't let the lesson hijackers say anything at all. There has never been a time when I've been able to comply with the self-imposed order to keep my trap shut in a lesson I wasn't teaching. But, hey, who needs friends??

Amelia Smith said...

So I attempted the cookies. Audrey was surprisingly good... Unfortunantly I set the over to 350 instead of 375, so they didn't turn out! It was certainly a bummer!

Stephanie said...

Okay, one of my worst habits is to want to take over any class that I attend. I have NO self-restraint when it comes to comments, and when a class starts to go bad, it's all I can do to stay in my seat and not rip the manual out of their hand and sit myself on the front table. I know, I know, it's so pompous and unChristian, but I just can't help myself.

Hel said...

Hmmm... I am going to venture a guess at why we all blog. Could it be we are the type that just need to keep talking when everyone else has gone home?

Gran Denny said...

Lol, don't beat yourself up Helen, isn't it so refreshing to know there are plenty of us about who love the gospel, often struggle with the members, have a secret and shameful desire to teach every lesson we hear, cos we know we could do better and yes, we ARE the main contributors to all class discussions and rightly so cos 90% of those present are there only in body to fill those empty chairs.

The one saving grace in my new ward is there is one FABULOUS teacher in relief society whose lessons remind me what it's really meant to be like. I really hope there is one of those in your new ward somewhere in one of the auxillaries.

Keep on trucking, you and Dallas were such an inspiration to me I will never forget watching and marvelling at how a 'proper' marriage goes thanks to you two.

Love you lots.

Annie said...

Helen, you crack me up! I love to read your blog, I love your take on everything. I wish you lived closer!

Unknown said...

You Must have been to the branches here in New Zealand!
Although I am now the primary president so I don't attend sunday school. I always have to constantly remind myself The Gospel is True.

Kimberly Vanderhorst said...

I don't know...having a good Sunday School teacher can actually be a bit wearing...

...on the mascara.

Seriously, our gal makes me cry WEEKLY.

And I'm so the gal who answers all the questions too. It's a tough gig, but it's better than the awkward silence...

...or the ten minute long tangent that loud guy/gal would otherwise take the class on...