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Today's sacrament meeting talks were given by the Grow family. This delightful family has the most interesting things to say that it really helps me concentrate on the topic. I don't really have to try to listen, it's as natural as breathing, when they speak. Sister Grow talked about....
how difficult it was to grow up, and there was a lot to do, her family moved away from her friends, and they lived in an apartment above a theater that her family managed. Gone were her green grass and places to play, she had to play on the asphalt and help run the theater, and for play they skateboarded up and down the aisles. She spoke of how she found junior high school fairly confronting, what with keeping track of your gym clothes, taking them home on Friday and remembering to have them again on Monday, and having to shower in public and all that, because the teacher was watching to make sure you did. Then she went on to discuss various things in life that are new and challenging, and how the adversity is always with us, how we should accept life and move on with it.
But if her talk wasn't interesting enough, her husband too wove an elaborate parable about family unity. He was raised in the olden days, before dial telephones. In them days, you could not dial a number you had to listen for the number of rings, and be aware that some unexpected party may be listening in on your party line. He said they had a wind up phone, you had to crank it up, which would generate electricity. When they finally got their dial phone, it was amazing because it was your exclusive line, not shared with any other family. His brother took the old wind up phone apart, and all twelve members of his family, (that's right, twelve, what's so big about that? we had thirteen) stood around in a circle, holding hands, with the two people on the end of the circle each grasping an end wire, while someone cranked the handle. This caused an electric current to surge through each member of the family until someone broke the chain. This was a form of entertainment. LOL.
He then drew the analogy that in Mormonism, the family circle is one unbroken chain and that each member is essential and when one is missing, it is disruptive to the family unity. He applied that lesson in various ways to good effect.
In one application of it he talked about how family members that have passed on are hoping we maintain the unbroken chain of family relationships beyond the grave because in God's plan all of His children need to be related to one another through priesthood power.
It was a great meeting.
And as a bonus I found out during Sunday School that Clayne Robison is in Nauvoo to teach at Nauvoo University, and intends to start a community choir. I am highly interested in this, I had the good fortune to take a choir class from him when I was at the Y, and it was one of the more interesting classes I have ever had. He has several ingenious ways to put his subject across and his classes are never dull and his choir always seem to gravitate towards the upper levels of their potential. This next year is getting more interesting to me already.
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