three hours of church

[Tao]

I do what I can to participate, either vocally or internally. If the lesson/talk is less than participatory, it usually at least sows seeds of thoughts of what to study to fill in the gaps. I'm teetering on the edge of wanting to buy a notepad or something to access the Tanakh without having to pack it around physically, but worry that downtime would become somewhat... less productive. (Not to mention they're spendy.) I'm far from what one would call perfect in my piety, but I grew up with the mentality that education was expensive, no matter how you get it. Spiritual education is no different, in that regard.

[Portia]

Church last Sunday was actually very strong. The R.S. teacher is in a master's program: I really admire her, and I thought she presented Uchtdorf's "Vergiss-mich-nicht" talk well. We discussed drunken guards and teenage girl abductions in Sunday School (seriously folks, the Book of Mormon is weird). And the testimonies were good. Also, it doesn't hurt to sit by someone you're crushing on for two of those hours (um, I don't wander down the street where he lives humming My Fair Lady? nope), and when some ridiculously attractive Australian comes and says, "ki'ens are cu'ah, the skai is blu'ah, the sohn shaines broi'er." Be still my beating heart.

The Crush is convinced that I ought to be there every week, and he cares if I go "because you're my friend!" and the old line about country clubs and hospitals. He really really (really!) believes in God and that God loves me and I need to believe that. For the moment, I'll believe in people; that's good enough for me.

[yayfulness]

Over the past year, in my student ward, my roommates and I would write each other nice notes (and by "nice notes" I mean something that could better be described as "mean notes") instead of paying attention. Now that I'm in my home ward for the summer, I don't have to worry about being bored or distracted... because I got called to teach a Primary class. This is one of those things that makes me pretty certain that God has a sense of humor, and that that sense of humor includes at least a small element of poetic justice.

[Portia]

Well I am in possession of a temple recommend for the first time in a long, long time (five years, probably). I was really anxious about this, the various social pressures and wanting to impress people and excursions, but I think my fears were unwarranted (hmm, that last clause could probably be embroidered on throw pillows for EVERYONE IN MY OBSESSIVE FAMILY). I was honest, I didn't try to sugarcoat anything about my doubts, but my Bishop actually seemed more interested in the velocity of this graph than the position. I guess if the first derivative of my faith sufficed, I will take it, and not be overly concerned. Surprisingly (at least to me) was that I feel the Honor Code is actually stricter when it comes to behavior than getting a T.R. I still don't know about going beyond the "limited use" (I do know, actually: it freaks me many shades of freaked out), but I guess I just thought he used an interesting analogy (and one actually relevant to me, as I love music!): if you don't practice piano every day, you start to feel rusty. He compared that to spiritual "rustiness," and actually seemed to view temple attendance as more of a cause of spiritual growth than the effect of being some Wonderfully Perfect Perfecton. Also, my bishop doesn't sleep. Between surgery, playing piano in the hospital at 3 AM (?!), and temple trips at 5:15 AM (?!?), he just doesn't.