Distractedness reaches a new level

Have you ever been asked to say the closing prayer in a church meeting, and by the time the meeting ends, you've forgotten all about it, and everyone's waiting, and you're waiting too, and all of a sudden you realize everyone's waiting for you?

I hope it's not just me that this happens to.

Now to the next level. Has this ever happened to you with the opening prayer in a church meeting? You're asked to pray, you agree, and two minutes later your mind has moved on to something else and you've forgotten all about it?

I've done that too.

But yesterday I realized I definitely need to learn to focus better. We had a musical number in the middle of our church services. Some children were going to sing, and I went up to the piano to accompany them. My music was ready and I sat there watching as the children came up to the front and their music leader helped them get arranged. Then I watched her as she smiled at them and raised her hands, preparing to start them into the song. Then she paused, and I wondered why they weren't starting. Then the music leader looked at me questioningly. And then I realized, Oh, that's right, I'm the pianist.

Either I'm so used to accompanying that I don't even think about it anymore, or I'm getting old and senile. Whichever it is, I should probably write a big note to myself before stake conference next week: "I AM ACCOMPANYING THE STAKE CHOIR. BEGIN PLAYING. KEEP PLAYING TILL FINISHED. PLEASE ATTEMPT TO PLAY THE CORRECT NOTES IN THE CORRECT ORDER. AND DON'T FALL ASLEEP DURING THE TALK RIGHT BEFORE THE CHOIR SINGS."

Christmas Sunday

Last Sunday at church we had a musical program. It's become a tradition that on the Sunday before Christmas, the bishop asks several members of the congregation to speak briefly about a favorite Christmas song. After each speaker, the congregation sings the song the speaker chose. I love hearing the reasons people choose various songs, and I love the extra singing.

This year, instead of asking for Christmas songs specifically, the bishop just asked for songs about the Savior. We ended up with a great mix of hymns that expressed the speakers' love for Jesus Christ. It was a wonderful way to get our hearts ready for Christmas. Here are a few words from each of the songs.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come;
Let earth receive her King!

I believe in Christ; oh, blessed name!
As Mary's Son he came to reign
'Mid mortal men, his earthly kin,
To save them from the woes of sin.

I marvel that he would descend from his throne divine
To rescue a soul so rebellious and proud as mine,
That he should extend his great love unto such as I,
Sufficient to own, to redeem, and to justify.

He overcometh all.
He saveth from the Fall.
His might and power are great.
He all things did create.
And he shall reign forevermore.

And our eyes at last shall see him,
Through his own redeeming love;
For that child so dear and gentle
Is our Lord in heaven above.

The Lord is my light; the Lord is my strength.
I know in his might I'll conquer at length.
My weakness in mercy he covers with power,
And, walking by faith, I am blest every hour.

Silent night! Holy night!
Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from thy holy face,
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord, at thy birth;
Jesus, Lord, at thy birth.

Have a joyful Christmas!

Mike's farewell

Yesterday at church, Mike was released from his calling as a counselor in the bishopric. Actually, both counselors were released and new ones were called. (Our bishop likes to shake things up and give different people a chance to serve.)

Here's the thing that cracked us up, though. Usually when you get released from a calling, it's fairly routine; everyone's interested in the new person called, and curious to see what you get asked to do next, but it's not that big of a deal. This was a little different. The bishop spoke to the congregation about how nice it's been to work with Mike and the other counselor, and how he'll miss working with them. The stake president talked about the good qualities of both men too. (Mike told me later, "It's not often you get to hear your own eulogy.") But it was after the meeting ended that it really got funny. People kept going up to Mike (and the other man, too, I assume) and saying, "We'll miss you," or approaching me to tell me how much they'll miss Mike. I kept wanting to say, "He's still going to be here!" Now, of course I know they meant they'll miss him serving in that role. But just from the way they put it, it sure sounded like he was leaving forever. It gave us the giggles when we talked about it later.

Miracles of all sizes

Yesterday around 6 AM I was on my way to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple to be part of the very first shift of ushers for the public tours. There were 6 of us traveling together, since one of the men had offered to drive us in his 12-passenger van. We were headed down a highway when out of nowhere a deer came running across the road. I barely caught a glimpse of it before the van slammed right into it.

The airbags deployed. The van swerved. Somehow the driver was able to get us over to the shoulder of the road and stop. We could hardly believe what had happened -- it was over in seconds.

After a moment we all got out. The two men went back down the road, picking up pieces of the van and confirming that the deer was off the road. The van's front end was demolished and liquid was pouring out of the radiator. The owners of the van started making the necessary phone calls to insurance, towing company, and a relative to come and help. Amazingly, it appeared that nobody was hurt. (Except the deer, unfortunately, but we couldn't do anything about that.)

About three minutes later, a vehicle pulled over. It was another lady from our ward who was on her way to the same assignment. The van owners told the rest of us to go on with her. We agreed, although we felt bad for this couple having to miss helping at the temple, which they had really been looking forward to.

The rest of us got to the temple and did our training. Just before we were to start our shifts, we looked over and saw that this couple had arrived! Their son had come with a truck and towed the van to their home, and they had driven their other vehicle to the temple in time to participate.

I'm sure someone could point at what happened that morning and say it was just coincidence, but I believe otherwise. Probably all or most of us had prayed that morning for safe travel. All of us were eager to volunteer our time to help at the temple, the Lord's house. These things don't always prevent disaster, but this time we were blessed with miracles. None of us was injured. We didn't cause anyone else on the road to have an accident. Help arrived quickly. None of us had to miss the opportunity to serve at the temple.

And it's a beautiful temple. Make sure you tour it if you can. The open house runs from June 1 to August 1. Reservations are required, but they're easy to arrange here.

Cheerfulness

I gave a talk today about being happy, based on President Monson's conference talk "Be of Good Cheer." I was trying to think how to express the idea that mothers set the mood for their homes, and here's what I ended up with.

I woke up one morning and got out of bed.
"What a great morning!" I cheerfully said.
As the children arose, I smiled at each one,
And the mood in our home was so happy and fun.
We went through the day showing love for each other,
And they all went to sleep saying, "I love you, Mother."

I woke up one morning and got out of bed.
"I know this day's going to be lousy," I said.
As the children arose, I said, "Clean up this room!"
And the mood in our home turned to sadness and gloom.
We went through the day full of yelling and fights,
And we glared at each other as we said, "Good night."

I woke up this morning and got out of bed.
"I wonder what this day will be like?" I said.
"Some days we all laugh, and some days we all cry.
I wonder if I'll ever figure out why?"

That's one way to get out of teaching a lesson...

I was scheduled to teach the Young Women lesson next Sunday. I had pulled together a few things for it, but had planned to really work on it this afternoon after church. Then last night I got a call asking me to come meet with the bishop before church today.

It's pretty amazing how the Church works. In the space of about 4 hours I was asked to accept a new responsibility; the announcement was made that I was released from my old assignment and given the new one; the Young Women president made arrangements for someone else to teach that lesson next week; and just like that, I'm doing something completely different that I didn't have any idea about when I woke up this morning. And this happens every week in wards and branches all over the world. And the majority of people say yes, and despite any feelings of inadequacy, they go on to serve in their new callings the best that they can, and grow and learn and become more than they were.

I'll miss working with the young women, but I love Relief Society (the women's organization of the Church) and it will be challenging and fun serving as a counselor there. Our Relief Society president is one of the nicest and happiest ladies in the whole world. She makes everyone around her feel better about themselves -- a talent I want to learn.

Update - Monday night I was told that the bishop wants the whole R.S. Presidency to give talks next Sunday. Guess I spoke too soon about getting out of things...

Creating

I just saw this today. It's beautiful. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf's words on creating have been put with music and pictures. I tried to put the video here but it kept stopping after loading halfway, and frankly, I'm not in the mood to learn new computer skills right now, so here's the link instead.

Word clouds

I've seen word clouds before, but today I saw a link to a site where you can make your own: wordle.net. It takes your text and creates a picture where the size of the words indicates their frequency. I wanted to try it out with something fairly long, so I pasted in the text of a talk I gave in church last year on citizenship. Here's the result. (Click to see it larger.)

I also tried it with a talk I gave a few months later on tolerance. (Last year was a busy one for giving talks. They've let me rest this year.)

Pretty fun!

Proofreading aloud

After the LDS Church holds its 2-day general conference each April and October, the talks have to be prepared for printing in the next month's Ensign magazine. It's a complicated process and has to be done in less than two weeks. So a group of volunteer proofreaders comes in to help.

Nine years ago I happened to hear about this arrangement, and after taking a proofreading test, I joined the team. It's the best volunteer job I can imagine!

Some of the details have changed over the years, but one thing that we still do is proofread the talks orally as well as silently. Proofreading aloud is an interesting process. It takes two proofreaders. One reads the talk out loud from the original copy while the other one follows along in the copy we're checking. Everything must be checked, including punctuation, italics, paragraphing, endnotes, etc. To speed up the process, we use verbal abbreviations to show the things that normally wouldn't be read aloud. It sounds very funny but is surprisingly quick and accurate. Here's an example from a random book off my shelf.

Miss Farish bent short-sightedly over the accompanying card. "Mr. Simon Rosedale. What, that horrid man? Oh, yes---I remember he's a friend of Jack's, and I suppose cousin Grace had to ask him here today."

Here's what it would sound like aloud, with the proofreading additions in capitals:

TWO CAP Miss Farish bent short HYPH sightedly over the accompanying card POINT ITAL QUOTE CAP M r POINT TWO CAP Simon Rosedale POINT END ITAL What COM that horrid man QUEST Oh COM yes EM DASH I remember he POS s a friend of CAP Jack POS s COM and I suppose cousin CAP Grace had to ask him here today POINT CLOSE QUOTE

Endnotes and references get really interesting, especially when there are dozens of them in a row. But again, for accuracy and speed, it's hard to beat this way of proofreading. And if I ever have to show off a strange talent at a party, I'm ready!

In case you want to practice this useful skill yourself, here are all the abbreviations I can think of right now.

. point or dot
, com
; sem
: col
? quest or query
! exclam or bang
" " quote or open quote or close quote
' ' open single, close single
' pos
- hyph
-- en dash or en
--- em dash or em
( ) paren or open paren or close paren
[ ] brack or open brack or close brack

Capitalized word - cap (two cap or three cap for several capitalized words in a row)
Word all in capitals - all caps
Italics - ital, end ital
Bold - bold, end bold
Superscript - super
Subscript - sub
Numeral (instead of spelling out the word for the number) - num
New paragraph - graph
New line - line

Okay, I can't resist ending with this: CAP that POS s all COM folks BANG

My morning as a lab technician

I helped today with a salsa-canning assignment at Welfare Square (an LDS Church facility in downtown Salt Lake where they prepare food to give to the needy). About 15 people showed up in the morning to help. We all put on our hairnets and gloves and the supervisors started pointing out where each person would be working. Some were put to work weighing ingredients or pouring them into big vats to be mixed. Some sat at the assembly line to check and label the jars. Finally another lady and I were asked to follow one of the supervisors. He took us through a door and we found ourselves in a little science lab. Our job was to test a jar from each batch of salsa, going through a checklist of tests and measurements and documenting everything carefully. What a fun assignment!

Here's what we had to document:
1. Date and time.
2. The lot number (marked on the jar).
3. Weight of the unopened jar.
4. The amount of vacuum inside the sealed jar. There was a neat little device that punctured the top and measured the vacuum on a dial.
5. The head space between the top of the jar and the salsa. Another device fit over the top of the open jar and we swung part of it down to measure the distance to the salsa.
6. "Soluble solids." The supervisor said this basically meant sugars. We processed some salsa in a blender, then put a spoonful into a testing device that gave a readout.
7. The pH. There were probes that we lowered into some of the blended salsa to get this reading.
8. The consistency. We had a metal contraption that was like a ramp with lines marked across it, and at the top of the ramp was a spring-release gate. We filled the space behind the gate with salsa, then released the gate and measured how far the salsa would run down the ramp in 30 seconds.
9. "Defects." This test was just spreading some of the salsa out in the bottom of the sink and looking through it to see if there was anything in it that shouldn't have been. No plastic, cardboard, or mysterious objects were found.
10. Color.
11. Taste. I don't like salsa, but luckily, the other lady did, so she did all the tasting. I told them I will be happy to go back on chocolate-tasting day, though.

Then we rinsed everything off and started again with the next jar.

I wasn't surprised that the kids were jealous when I came home and told them about my morning! Next time I volunteer I'll probably be cleaning floors or something, but this was a great assignment for my first time there, and a good warmup for our chemistry class this afternoon.

How to get people's attention at church

Today we had a shake-up at church. (And yes, I did have to look up whether "shake-up" is hyphenated or one word or two words. Now I know.)

Sacrament meeting started (the main congregational meeting) and the time for ward business came (when changes in people's callings, or assignments in the ward, are sometimes announced). Mike happened to be conducting the meeting today. He started reading a list of people who had been released from their previous callings. He read about 6 names, then paused. Then he read 3 or 4 more names. Then he read more names. Partway through, he had to turn to page 2 of his list, and as he lifted it, we could see that there were 4 or 5 pages stapled together.

If you're familiar with the LDS Church, you know what was happening. The presidencies of several organizations within the ward were being changed, and that meant other callings had to be changed, so a lot of shuffling was going on, worked out during the past few weeks with the bishopric's inspiration and logistics.

After the first group of names was read, you could feel moderate interest from maybe half the congregation. As the second group was read, you could hear people stopping their side conversations and tuning in to what was happening. When Mike turned the page and we saw the size of the list, the room became very quiet. It was a classic LDS moment. Even the people whose callings were changing (and therefore knew part of what was going to happen) were hanging on every word, wanting to know who else was going to be called to do what.

Finally the releasings were done (about 20 total) and Mike paused to savor the moment. (Or maybe he was just catching his breath.) Then he started to announce the new callings. The silence continued until he was done -- except for when he accidentally announced that "Sister ___ has been called as the Young Men president" when he meant Young Women president. Everyone laughed as he corrected himself. I told him later that it's good to break the tension and he couldn't have planned it better.

We ended up with a new Relief Society presidency (the adult women's organization), a new Young Women presidency (over the girls age 12 to 18), a new Young Men presidency (over the boys age 12 to 18), and various other new teachers and leaders. Some callings are still empty because the shuffling isn't quite finished yet.

I was able to watch people's reactions during the releasings because my calling was changing too, so I had a heads-up. (Yes, I looked that word up too. I just can't stop myself.) I was released as Sunday School teacher for the 16-18 year old class and pianist for Relief Society, and called as the Personal Progress leader in the Young Women organization. I will be helping the girls to work on the goal-setting program they're encouraged to complete by age 18. I don't know much about the calling yet, but I'm sure I will learn! I like shake-ups now and then: a change of calling can be nice, and learning new things is good. And it was a lot of fun to watch.

18 months from now

At church today, one of the speakers was a young woman who is leaving to serve as a missionary for 18 months in Pennsylvania. She gave a great talk, and in the middle of it, I started thinking about how she will be speaking to us again 18 months from now. Some of us will be taller; we'll all be older; most of us will be better or worse than we are today. She'll look out at us, and to her, we will seem to have changed in an instant.

For some reason, this made me really think about the little everyday decisions we all make that slowly, like geological weathering, shape us into different people. After 18 months of living one day at a time, who will I be? Will I be better or worse? Closer to Christ or farther away? If I could jump ahead 18 months and see the changes in myself, would I be pleased?

So I wrote down some of the hopes I have for the next 18 months. I'll read them in February 2010. Even if I haven't changed in all the ways I want to, it can't hurt to have a reminder of what I'm aiming for.

All over the place

Yesterday at church the youth were in charge of Primary for an hour, and I was asked at the last minute to go in and play the piano. After some singing, one of the young men presented a lesson and activity about commandments and blessings. He referred to Malachi 3:10: "Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." Then, to illustrate the scripture, he took out a bunch of slips of paper with blessings written on them, put them all into a paper sack, and asked the kids, "What will happen if I pour out all these blessings into my hand?" One of the little 4-year-olds in the front row stood up with a huge grin, stretched out his arms, and said, "They will get all over the place!"

Blessings all over the place. It's true! They're everywhere.