Well...that's the last time I go to Stake Conference!

A while back on my friends blog there was a link to another blog where there was a picture postcard that read, "The church is true, but I am still not going to Stake Conference."

I laughed because it is so true. We have four children ages 11, 9, almost 7 & almost 4. They/we struggle to sit reverently through an hour of sacrament meeting. The thought of taking all of them to a two hour meeting is not a happy one. This past Sunday was our stake conference. Saturday night Merlin asked if I wanted him to go and take the oldest child or if I wanted to go. I told him I would go because I had been practicing with the stake choir.

Fast forward to Sunday morning. I was seated in the choir seats and she sat with my sister in the congregation. Opening song, done. Prayer, done. While the first speaker was speaking, the stake executive secretary sneaks up to the choir seats and asks me if Big Sister is in attendance and if I thought she would be willing to come up and read something. "Yes, she is here, and she would do that," I whispered. Then he went back to his seat. Now, I didn't know who would be calling her up, or at what time, therefore, I have never been more focused on each speaker at any meeting. Ever. At one point the stake President looked back over the piano and caught my eye and was asking me something. What I don't know. I figured he was asking where Big Sister was. I motioned that she was out in the congregation. Finally, the last speaker got up, a member of the Seventy (is that who he was? Something like that). I thought "well, here we go." At the beginning of his talk he called up the stake Presidents wife to share her testimony and after she sits down he said something to the effect of, "I will be calling others, so be ready." Everybody did that nervous laugh. Me, I was not nervous because I knew who he was calling up. Well, I guess I was a little nervous, I was hoping Big Sister wouldn't be out in the hall getting a drink or in the bathroom when they called her name. He talked for such a long time, I was beginning to think that he had changed his mind and wouldn't call her up. But then it happened. He said I am going to have the Stake President ask a Primary child, about the age of 11 and the parents to come up. Wait! What? Next thing I know the Stake President is saying our names, "Merlin, Lezlie and Big Sister." Oh crap! Merlin is not here. And why are you saying my name?! I walked up and whispered to the Stake President, "Merlin is home with the little ones." Oh crap! Now the entire stake knows that Merlin in not at Stake Conference. (On a side note, at this exact moment, Merlin's cell phone goes crazy with text message alerts.) Big Sister whispered to me "Um, Mom, what is going on?" Me, "Um, I have no idea." The visiting Seventy asked Big Sister to read the first verse of "Teach Me to Walk in the Light." Then he asks me to read the second verse. Okay, no big deal. Then he has the congregation sing the third verse. When they finish, he does not excuse us, and says a few things and then turns to me and asked, "Will you share your feeling of this song and what it means to you?" Um...? I know I said something. I can't say exactly what or whether or not it made any sense or even if I did what he asked. When I finished he thanked us and let us go back to our seats.

When I got home and walked in the door Merlin asked, "So, did anything exciting happen at Stake Conference?"