A Different Kind of Sabbath

Yesterday, we received a phone call from the Bishop (and Ann) letting us know that church was going to be cancelled due to the impending Tropical Storm Faye. There were warnings of flooding and heavy rains, and I guess after Hurricane Katrina precautions were being taken. We even got a phone call recording from the City of Mobile letting us know to be safe, and if we lived in a trailer we should find shelter (they also gave a list of shelters).

So, this morning it was odd to wake up to sunshine! We did have rain off and on all day though, but nothing major. Let's just pray no other storms come our way!

Anyway, yesterday after the Bishop called, I was like, "YEAH, no church tomorrow!" I know to many of you that sounds bad, but hey, I did think that. I was glad for the break, Sunday's seldom seem like a day of rest. No sense in hiding it because the only one that really matters is the Lord and He knows my thoughts. And my thoughts were, "A Day Off".

However, as the the night went on I began thinking about a talk that Bro. Applegate gave a few weeks back in church. It was such a great talk on Raising a Righteous Family. The part that stuck out in my mind was a story he told about when his family lived in Africa. In the part of Africa where they lived, there was no church, but every Sunday their family had the sacrament in their home.

With this thought in my mind, I thought, "Hmm. There's no reason why we shouldn't have sacrament either. I mean, Mike holds the priesthood and he can bless the bread and water." So I talked to Mike and he said, "Yes we could have the sacrament."

Anyway, this morning when I woke up, I guess the girls thought was that it was a day off too because I heard the cartoons on.

Let me stop and say, I don't want anyone to think we are perfect with me posting this post. We are not. The girls fight, no matter how much we try to teach "Love At Home", I yell way too much and my entire family has so many flaws that I just don't want to list. So please know that. In fact while you are reading this, we are probably trying to overcome one of those flaws, or either that doing something we should not be doing.

However, we are always TRYING to be better. One of the things we are tyring to be better at is keeping the Sabbath Day Holy. Mike is really big on this. Even when we go on vacations, we go to church and Sunday's are our day off. We sit in the hotel. And I'm not going to judge you if your family does different. Everyone has there own way of keeping the Sabbath Holy and what is right for you, may not be right for us and vice versa. Our family has too many of our own problems to worry about how others may or may not be living the gospel. Trust me.

That being said, we are making baby steps in trying to be better at keeping the Sabbath more holy for our family. We don't go out shopping, out to eat, b-day parties, to the park, or do anything that would keep someone else from keeping the Sabbath holy, and we try to fill our day with good things. However, TV and the computer have been hard to completely give up (look, I'm typing right this very moment. Although, I like to think of this as keeping up with my personal history). But we don't do these things until the afternoon.

Anyway, back to my point, I know I have one. Oh yeah, the girls were watching cartoons. So I got up and said, "Girls what are you watching?"

They said, "Cartoons."

I said, "You know if you watch anything on Sunday mornings, it has to be one of the church videos like "Book of Mormon Reader".

They were like, "but we don't have church today."

Then it hit me. Why aren't we having church? Just because we are not meeting at the building, doesn't mean we can't have church. We were going to have sacrament, so why not everything else. So that's what we did.

We set up the den to look a little more reverent. We put on our Sunday clothes. Yes, we did. Mike even put on his suit. Then we had primary.

For singing time, we sang the songs from the CSMP, and we realized what we need to work on more. For sharing time, Mike shared with the girls that there are people all around the world who may not have a building to meet in, but that doesn't mean we can't worship Heavenly Father. He told of those who live in countries where it is illegal to go to church, and of those in the military that are in war zones and still take time to partake of the sacrament. We also talked about the fact that we never know what circumstances may come our way in the years to come, but how wonderful it is to know that we can always worship the Lord anywhere, especially in our home. It was very spiritual. The girls even participated in the discussion.

Then Mike took Ariel and taught her Primary class, and I taught Cecily. (Don't worry Ann, I guess you are a lesson ahead because Ariel said half way through her lesson, that she realized it was the lesson you taught last week.)

Then we met back together and had our short family sacrament meeting. This was really different and probably the biggest challenge for the girls. As we sang the sacrament hymn, Mike broke the bread and after blessed it and then continued with the water. When there are only 4 people, it doesn't take much to break the reverence, and if we had to meet like this every week,...well, reverence would definitely be something we would have to remind the girls about. Mike ended with an impromptu talk on reverence. Then we ended with prayer.

I think we all realized a lot today. First, it is a blessing to have the priesthood in our home so that even in dire circumstances we can partake of the sacrament, and also that we can still take time to worship Heavenly Father even if we don't meet at the chapel. But we also learned that it is nice to be able to gather with the Saints and worship, and that we all have a lot to learn. Cecily's prayer was really sweet. Here is part of what she said, "Dear Heavenly Father, please let us be able to go to church next week."

And even if it is at our house, we will.

Thanks Bro. Applegate for such a great talk and inspiring us to try to be better!