Sacrament Meeting

The prophet Moroni, when describing the operation of the church, said, "And they did meet together oft to partake of the bread and wine, in remembrance of the Lord Jesus." (Moroni 6:6)

We, too, meet together often to take the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. I find that sometimes it becomes rote, as if I'm just going through the motions. Other times, it is a profound spiritual experience.

Today at Times and Seasons, there is a post talking about a astronaut who blessed and partook of the Sacrament while aboard the space shuttle. At Mormon Matters, there is a post that is not specifically about the Sacrament, but is about unique or out of the ordinary Sacrament meeting experiences.

I commented on the Mormon Matters post about one of my unique experiences, but I have several others as well. While I was on my mission, one Sunday my companion and I were late for church because we were assisting one of our investigators. We arrived at church just after the Sacrament was passed. The district leader and his companion also served in our ward, and their apartment was near ours. We received permission for them to come over in the evening and administer the Sacrament. It was extremely spiritual, having four missionaries on a Sunday evening participating in a sacred ordinance.

My most recent unique Sacrament meeting experience took place last month. I was at a singles' retreat up in the mountains. I love mountains and find them to be extremely spiritual locations. I feel as if I'm closer to God when I'm there, and I find it fitting that mountains were used as temples in ancient times. The retreat ran from Friday night to Sunday afternoon, and on Sunday morning, we had a Sacrament meeting. Snow was falling outside and a fire was roaring inside as 20 of God's followers concluded a weekend of fellowship by meeting together to renew their covenants and remember their Redeemer. Although I had only met these people two days before, I felt a sense of unity as we worshiped together amid the pine trees.

I want to feel the Spirit that strongly every week. I believe that with a little preparation, it's possible. Right now, I show up to church a bit stressed each week because I'm on call Saturday nights. When my shift ends, I have just enough time to change for church and slide in with about 5 minutes to spare. This is, of course, provided that there are no emergencies near the end of my shift.

What do you do each week to prepare to make church a spiritual experience? How do you make the Sacrament feel holy and meaningful each week?

Viva Las Vegas!

I've been a bit busy with work lately, so I haven't had a chance to post much. I got a letter today from UNLV, and I've been waitlisted. While I would like a definite answer, a maybe is better than a no. I've been to Vegas before on multiple occasions, and I rather like it. I think I'll wait to check out the campus until after I've heard from some more schools.

A Recap of San Antonio

Last week, I flew out to San Antonio to check out the campus of St. Mary's University to decide whether to accept the offer of admission. I came back with mixed feelings.

I arrived on Tuesday afternoon and picked up my rental car. I requested a sub-compact, and the rental company said ok. They gave me the keys to a PT Cruiser. (Cute car, but definitely not sub-compact. Compared to the little Toyota I drive on a regular basis, the thing drove like a land barge.) I had planned to spend the day touring and exploring the city. However, I wasn't feeling well, so I just went to my hotel and slept. That evening, I ventured out to secure some dinner. (I was sorely tempted to order room service, but I decided that my budget wouldn't permit it.) My room had a microwave and a fridge, so I decided to buy groceries and cook instead of going out. San Antonio felt like a weird foreign land to me, but I noticed a Wal-Mart up the road. I went inside and suddenly felt at home again. (Wal-Mart is like church- it's the same wherever you travel.)

After dinner, I tried to go to bed early, but the time change wasn't helping me because my body thought it was two hours earlier than it was. (The perils of living on the west coast.) I got up the next morning, packed, and checked out of my hotel. I headed to St. Mary's and walked around. I had a meeting with the dean of admissions, and it was great. Everyone there made me feel like I was important. They were helpful and happy to answer my questions. (This is the complete opposite of my old law school, where at new-student orientation, they spent an hour basically telling us that we were lucky to even be there and we shouldn't complain about the school being crummy. That should have been my clue to get off the sinking ship, but I didn't see it at the time.)

I asked some hard questions because I wanted to make sure that I wasn't getting into the same situation as before. I asked about the bar passage rate, the employment statistics, and a few other things. The dean seemed to dance around my question about out-of-state employment prospects for graduates, but she was direct in answering all of my other questions. As I walked around campus, I noticed that the students seemed happy. (As opposed to my old school where everyone was miserable all the time.) I fell in love with the library; it's huge and sunny.

I had a chance to observe a class. It was the second semester of Constitutional Law- my favorite subject. The textbook wasn't a traditional casebook. Instead, it was a compilation of several edited cases with discussion and examples in between. It was very much like my undergraduate law books. I find this to be better than the typical casebook because it doesn't needlessly obscure the law. The professor was interesting and he wasn't trying to hide the ball when students asked him questions.

In all, I came away highly impressed with St. Mary's. I feel I could be happy there, and that I could get a good education there. Many of their graduates, according to the dean, end up on the bench, which is where I would like to be someday. I am still a little concerned about my job prospects because I plan to return to California when I'm done.

I'm not so sure about San Antonio, however. It seemed a bit run-down, although that could have just been the areas I saw. I didn't see as many trees as I would have liked, either. I am amazed at the low housing prices; I could get my own 1 bedroom apartment for the price I'm paying for my portion of a shared apartment here in Fremont.

I think overall, if it comes to it, I'll be able to move to San Antonio, but I'm still hoping that I don't have to uproot my life. I've been rejected from several Bay Area schools, but I haven't yet heard from Santa Clara University (my alma mater), so there's still a chance that I can stay. I also haven't heard from a few other schools, so even if I do move, it may not be to Texas.

I'm grateful that I'll be able to go to law school in the fall, and I know that God will guide me to where He needs me to be.

General Conference

I love modern technology. I work on Saturdays, so I didn't expect to be able to watch yesterday's conference. However, I miraculously had exactly enough downtime at work (and the foresight to bring my laptop and headphones) to watch the talks for the sessions. I was going to go to the church to watch the morning session today, but since I was on call last night, I decided that I was too tired. Hooray for byutv.com! My cats and I sat on the sofa and heard the good word preached.

The talks were great this time. I loved Elder Wirthlin's talk, reminding us that we're all different and that we need to embrace those differences. President Uchtdorf's talk on the faith of our fathers was good, too. Of course, he has so much charisma that I would be transfixed if he read the telephone book over the pulpit. Elder Ballard's talk was amazing. I really appreciated him boldly declaring that there isn't just one right way to be a mother. I also like that he didn't treat womanhood and motherhood as if they're the same thing. Many speakers tend to use the terms interchangeably, and I'm glad he didn't.

However, the talk that stood out the most to me was Elder Scott's talk on abuse. As some of you may remember from an earlier post, I was the victim of verbal and emotional abuse. I have not yet fully recovered, and this talk was a balm to my soul. I felt like he was speaking directly to me when he offered his words of comfort. I could feel his love and concern for those who suffer, and his faith and knowledge that Christ has the power to heal. I have felt the beginnings of this healing from this ordeal, but the wound is still there. I look forward to the day when it is gone, and I know that Christ has the power to make wrong things right again.

I am truly grateful for the opportunity to listen to general conference twice each year. I look forward to the printed messages so I can study them again in greater detail.

Great News!

I just found out that I've been accepted to law school at St. Mary's in San Antonio, TX!! This is after receiving two rejection letters (a rude one from UC Davis and a polite one from Hastings). I still have several schools left that I haven't heard from, but it's such a relief that, regardless of what happens with the other schools, I'm going somewhere. When I found out, I cried. I'm not usually a crier, but I was just so overcome with relief and gratitude. I'm going to get it right this time around. I'm a little nervous about the possibility of picking up and leaving the Bay Area for Texas. I'll be flying out next week to check out the area; the only time I've been to Texas was a layover at the Dallas airport coming home from my mission.

The Sisterhood of the Slacks

This won't be a post about the movie The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, although I did enjoy it. Over at Adventures in Mormonism, bfwebster posted about The Brotherhood of the Beard, talking about what it's like at church being a man with a beard. This got me thinking about what it's like at church being a woman in slacks.

I've never really cared for wearing skirts. I've always found them to be more trouble than they're worth, and they tend to get in the way. However, every Sunday I dutifully put on a skirt for church. I discovered dress slacks when I entered the workforce at age 18. I noticed that I was one of the only women wearing a skirt, and I decided that since everyone else was wearing pants, I could, too. I still dutifully put my skirt on for church, though.

Shortly after I discovered slacks, my stake had a women's conference on a Saturday afternoon. It was being held in the chapel, so I decided that jeans weren't proper. I threw on slacks and a sweater and off I went. There were a few hundred people there, and only about 10 of us were wearing pants. None of us were struck by lightning.

My mission (southern US) was a real eye-opener as to how much of a cultural rebel this makes me. In most of my areas, I was on bicycle. It's extremely difficult to ride a bike in a skirt. I mentioned to a few other people that it would be safer, more practical, and more modest if sisters on bikes could wear slacks. They all acted as if that suggestion was one step away from apostasy or something. There was a woman in my last area who regularly wore slacks to church. The RS president told me that she wanted to call her to a position in RS, but was hesitant because she thought that wearing slacks was setting a bad example. (Lest you think that this is merely a southern attitude, the RS pres in question had moved there recently from the SF Bay Area - my home.)

I have only gotten up the nerve to wear slacks to sacrament meeting once (while I was traveling), but I wear slacks to stake and general conference and to non-Sunday meetings more often than not. In my ward, there is one woman who wears slacks to church regularly, and there are several in the branch that shares the building with my ward. The woman in my ward is a bit defensive about it (she has some medical reason for it), which leads me to believe that she has experienced either overt or covert hassling for it.

The anti-slacks rhetoric has always confused me. A woman is much more dressed up in a smart pantsuit or slacks and sweater set than someone in a denim skirt with a babydoll tee. Yet the latter outfit is par for the course at church, especially among teenagers and young adults.

I live in a very culturally diverse area - there are people from all over the world here in Fremont. Someone was talking about pants at church, and her opinion was that the only time it was ok was for women from India to wear their pants/tunic outfit (the name escapes me at the moment) because it's dressy and part of their culture. I didn't say anything at the time because it was clear that this was a rant and not a discussion.

My culture (western US, CA specifically) also says it's dressy and appropriate for women to wear pants. Why can't that be respected?

Things My Cat Taught Me About God

I've had a soft spot for animals ever since I was a kid. When I was three, I convinced my mom, against her better judgment, to adopt a stray cat that was mewing at our door for food. We kept the cat until we moved to California. I wanted to get another cat, but my parents wouldn't let me. They said that when I got my own place, I could get any pet my landlord would allow, but as long as I lived at their house, no animals.

Well, I got my own place a few years ago. I had a roommate who loved dogs but hated cats. I love cats, but I'm not too crazy about dogs, so we agreed not to have pets. She moved a year later and I found a new roommate. My current roommate has a cat, so for a while, my desire for a pet was taken care of. Then, over the summer, a stray cat showed up on my doorstep mewing for food. Of course, I had to feed her.

A funny thing happened. My cat was so excited about this newfound source of food that she went and rounded up all the neighborhood strays. I suddenly found myself feeding five cats (just counting the ones I know about) instead of the one I signed up for. This is the first lesson my cat taught me. She had found a good thing in her life - a benevolent being that provided her with her daily sustenance. Instead of keeping this to herself, she shared it and brought her friends so they could experience the same blessing.

Some of the strays were friendly, but most of them were afraid of humans. There was one particular kitten who would watch me fill the bowl, gingerly eat from it if I was far enough away, but would run if I tried to approach. It hurt my feelings that I was feeding this kitten, but he would run if I tried to have a relationship with him. I'm sure we similarly wound God's heart when we run from Him in fear, even knowing the good He does for us.

Last week, I finally convinced my roommate that bringing another cat into the apartment would be a good plan. My cat finally got to move in! I took her to the vet to get a checkup and to get her shots. When I put her in the carrier, she tried to scratch me. As I drove to the vet's office, she meowed loudly, voicing her clear displeasure at the situation. When we got there, she whimpered as she got her shots. When I brought her home, she ignored me the rest of the day because she was mad at me. This is the third lesson. Sometimes we have to go through painful things in life. It looks to us as if God is mistreating us. However, we lack the big picture, and we don't fully understand the reasons behind our suffering.

I'm sure my cat will continue to teach me important lessons. Do any of you have lessons or parables learned from your pets?

=^. .^=

A Time to Speak

While I was sitting in my institute class this evening, the prompting came to write this blog post. The topic of discussion for the day was on not judging and not spreading gossip. These are important topics, essential to the Christian life. However, I was disturbed at the turn that the lesson took.

The teacher spent a good portion of the lesson on how we shouldn't say bad things about someone even if those things are true. One guy in the class raised his hand and proposed an excellent hypothetical that bears discussion.

You know that someone "has a morality problem". [My classmate didn't elaborate. I'm assuming from the tenor of the discussion that what he meant to say was that the individual had pressured a woman he dated into breaking the law of chastity.] Your sister or friend starts dating him. Shouldn't you tell her what you know so that she can be aware and protect herself?

The teacher gave lip service to the notion that you should go by the Spirit in deciding what to say. However, she spent the next several minutes talking about how if we share negative information, even if it's true, that it paints a label on someone and prevents him or her from changing. While she didn't come right out and say it, the impression that I was left with was that making it easier for a sinner to avoid embarrassment in the repentance process (assuming they even choose to repent) outweighed protecting the innocent potential victims. I'm sure that isn't what she meant, but it disturbed me nonetheless.

I had an experience on my mission where I had an emotionally and verbally abusive companion. At first, I was reluctant to bring it to the attention of my leaders, because I had had it drilled into me in missionary prep and in the MTC that there's a reason for every companion, you shouldn't complain about them, and if you're having trouble, you should just pray for more charity. I let this go on for several weeks before I told my mission president. He transfered me right away and my companion was sent home a few weeks later.

Part of me I guess believed that since mission presidents are inspired in the setting of companionships, that they know everything there is to know about a situation. Several months later, I was discussing the situation again with my mission president (because I was still distressed over it), and he told me that if he had known what was going on sooner, he would have transferred me immediately. I realized that if we don't volunteer the information we have, then people with the power to do something won't be aware that something needs doing.

I highly doubt that I was this companion's first victim. If one of them had spoken out, I might have been spared the pain I went through. I believe that by speaking out, I spared someone else down the line.

One scripture that speaks to this topic is found in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes. "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven...A time to keep silence and a time to speak." When deciding whether to share negative but true information, I think there are some factors that need to be considered.

First, why are you sharing it? If it's to protect someone, that is fine. If it's because you enjoy passing along juicy tidbits, that's not fine.
Second, who are you sharing it with? Are you telling everyone, or just the people who need to know?
Third, are you violating any confidences by sharing the information? This can get problematic, for example if a lawyer learns something from a client, or the bishop hears something in confession.

If you can pass this test, then it sounds like it's a time to speak. Even Jesus, the perfect embodiment of charity, had some not so positive things to say about some people who were behaving harmfully. He was motivated by love and concern, both for the sinners and the victims. We should feel confident in following His example.

Around the Bloggernacle - Volume 2

I've been busy lately between job hunting and filling out another round of law school applications (more on that later), and so I haven't taken the time to write a blog post in a while. Here's a list of some of the posts on other blogs that have caught my attention lately.

Beginnings New has a post on the YW Lesson 3-8 "Eternal Families" that provides a fresh perspective on how sensitive an issue this can be for youth from part-member or less-active families.

Times and Seasons has a post about Nate Oman's recently written paper about LDS church courts in the 19th century.

By Common Consent has a post about experiences singing solos in church. I posted a comment on one of my more spiritual singing experiences. I have several funnier or more embarrassing experiences as well that I didn't post in the comments, due to length. So, here's my most embarrassing:

• When I was on my mission (why is it that so many good church related stories start like that?), the day of the ward Christmas party, the ward mission leader called me in a panic. The soprano soloist for the party had a last-minute emergency and had to back out. He remembered me mentioning that I sang in the opera in college, and he implored me to fill in that evening. I had a really bad cold and could barely talk, but I said yes anyway. My companion and I headed over to the church so that I could practice. I was supposed to sing The First Noel, and since I couldn't get an accompanist last-minute, I needed to sing a capella. While rehearsing, I was able to sing just fine, as if the cold was gone. When the time came for me to sing, I got through the first half with no problem. Something happened in the middle, and my voice went all haywire. I finished the song, but it wasn't pretty. I sat down, embarrassed, hoping that by the end of the party, everyone would have forgotten. Afterward, the bishop's wife, who didn't know about my singing experience and training, patted me on the back and complimented me on my bravery for getting up in front of everyone to sing.
  

I hope you all are having a great week! Check back on Tuesday or Wednesday for a more substantive post. (Now that I've put it on the internet for all to see, I'm going to actually have to follow through and do it.)

Law School Applications- Round 2.0

On Friday, I sent in my first batch of law school applications for the fall semester. I had to cut the list down considerably because many of the schools were not even willing to consider someone who had previously attended law school. To make up for that, I'm going to probably apply to a few more schools as a backup later this week. I've already applied to 5 schools, and I'm going to shoot for 4-5 more to be on the safe side. I'm fighting an uphill battle here, but I'm confident that I'll get in somewhere.

The job search is going slowly, but I had an interview last week. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I'll do a more spiritual post in a few days when I have some more time.