Coming Home
This past Sunday was my first time attending an entire elders quorum meeting in weeks. Between taking photos for the upcoming issue of the Elders Journal, helping a friend in the Family History Center®, subbing in Primary and Nursery, and our annual stake Priesthood meeting (which requires each ward in our building to have only Sacrament Meeting), it had been seven weeks since I last attended an entire meeting with my quorum. What’s most amazing is how much I missed it, and how little I realized how much I missed it.
My hearing isn’t the best, so I always sit in the front row to keep the gym’s (sorry, Cultural Hall’s) less-than-ideal acoustics from drowning out the instructor. The front row was unusually full, this week, and it was great to be back where I belong, in the company of my brethren. Furthermore, we’ve been blessed with a really great quorum—unlike most wards and quorums, I can’t think of a single person that can regularly be counted on, to bring up some ridiculous pet idea—and incredibly talented instructors.
As we sat there discussing the life of Christ, the Spirit was amazingly strong—strong enough to remind me what I’ve been missing. It never ceases to amaze me that that can happen as we sit in folding chairs on an indoor basketball court; I don’t even think about the goal above the instructor’s head, much less the scoreboard and caged clock on the wall. It was kind of like attending the temple after not having gone, for a while; it just really felt like a homecoming, and I can’t wait to be back there again.
Finally, I want to emphasize that I know many people serve in callings that don’t allow them to attend their quorum meetings regularly, if at all. I’ve spent much of my adult life serving in Primary or Young Men’s, so I understand that a mere seven weeks is nothing compared to your absence. Still, the experience was somewhat of an epiphany for me, one that reminded me why I love going to Church. It’s sometimes easy to lose sight of that—especially when our ward is in its third of four consecutive years in the 9:00 slot—but sometimes it just takes coming home, to make a guy realize just what he has.
My hearing isn’t the best, so I always sit in the front row to keep the gym’s (sorry, Cultural Hall’s) less-than-ideal acoustics from drowning out the instructor. The front row was unusually full, this week, and it was great to be back where I belong, in the company of my brethren. Furthermore, we’ve been blessed with a really great quorum—unlike most wards and quorums, I can’t think of a single person that can regularly be counted on, to bring up some ridiculous pet idea—and incredibly talented instructors.
As we sat there discussing the life of Christ, the Spirit was amazingly strong—strong enough to remind me what I’ve been missing. It never ceases to amaze me that that can happen as we sit in folding chairs on an indoor basketball court; I don’t even think about the goal above the instructor’s head, much less the scoreboard and caged clock on the wall. It was kind of like attending the temple after not having gone, for a while; it just really felt like a homecoming, and I can’t wait to be back there again.
Finally, I want to emphasize that I know many people serve in callings that don’t allow them to attend their quorum meetings regularly, if at all. I’ve spent much of my adult life serving in Primary or Young Men’s, so I understand that a mere seven weeks is nothing compared to your absence. Still, the experience was somewhat of an epiphany for me, one that reminded me why I love going to Church. It’s sometimes easy to lose sight of that—especially when our ward is in its third of four consecutive years in the 9:00 slot—but sometimes it just takes coming home, to make a guy realize just what he has.
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