Okay let me tell you about our unusual Sunday last week. Just before we got in the car to go to church we got a phone call telling us that church was cancelled. Apparently one of the pipes in the fire suppression system was broken and you can’t have a bunch of people meeting in a building with no fire suppression system. Well there we were, all dressed up and no place to go. So, for fun, we got on the internet and found a Methodist church that had a meeting at 9. It was actually just down the street from our house. We went to a Methodist worship service. The building was much bigger than I’m used to, and it was very ornate with a large beautiful creche up front. I love big stain glass windows. The sanctuary wasn’t very full. There were a few young families with children, but most of the congregation was older people. The music was Christian contemporary. It was the first Sunday after Epiphany and so the message focused on the Wisemen. They blessed the Communion and invited everyone to come up and take it, Becky and I graciously declined. The sacrament prayer in an LDS church lasts about 10 seconds. But in the Methodist meeting the priest has a 5 min. teaching that he gives about the sacrament. It’s neat how they remember the meaning of the sacrament. After the worship service Becky and I came home. I was having so much fun that I looked up another meeting for another church. Becky stayed home to prepare dinner for some guests we had coming over. I went to the Old Greystone Presbyterian Church. The building they meet in is over 200 yrs old! It sits up on top of the hill and, in my mind, represents the blood and sweat of the early inhabitants of Lewisburg. The interior reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of the Kirtland temple, although it predates the Kirtland temple by several years. It was beautiful in a different sort of way. It was elegant because of what it represented. There were no stain glass windows, but it was still charming. Again, most of the congregation was older couples. There were a few young families, but not many. I was reminded of articles I’ve read recently describing a cultural shift away from organized religion. I think it’s sad. Anyway, the music in the Presbyterian church was more familiar to me. There was a big organ in the balcony behind us and the organist played it with all the stops out. There was a choir up by the organ too. They sounded really good. We sang good Christian standby’s that I was familiar with, though some of the words were different than I was used to. There weren’t a lot of us in the sanctuary, but we made a lot of noise; it was fun. There was no mention made of the communion, which surprised me. So that was our little field trip into other parts of Christendom. Today everything was fixed so we held our regular service at our church. It was good to be back “home.”
The rest of the week has gone well for Becky and I. She worked the first part of the week and had the last part to work on various projects that she has going here at home. I had an interesting experience at school this week. A group of instructors came from a medical school in Virginia to teach us how to do male and female exams. We met as a group of 2 or 3 students and one instructor in an exam room. The instructor used his or her body to demonstrate how to do the exam. We each got an opportunity to do the exam. It was very instructional, and not as awkward as we were all expecting. It will help a lot when the time comes for me to do those sorts of examinations on real patients.
We wish you all the very best of everything!
