Feb 6, 2012

Junior Sunday School

When I was young and up until Ben and Jeff were young we used to have two sections of church each week. We would start at around 10 am and have Priesthood Meeting and then sunday school and junior sunday school. It went, if I remember correctly, until about noon and then we would go home until 7 pm when we would return for Sacrament Meeting that went until about 8:30 pm. MIA was usually Tuesday nights for the teenagers at 7 pm and went until around 9 pm. Then on Wednesday nights we had primary right after school around 4 pm  and Relief Society at 7 pm for the women. Our quarterly Stake Priesthood meeting were held around 7 am on Sundays when we had them. 

We had a lot more responsibility as young priesthood bearers because we passed the sacrament in adult sunday school and junior sunday school and then again that night in sacrament meeting. So as Teachers we prepared the sacrament twice and as priest blessed it twice, once in one of the sunday school sections and then in sacrament meeting. Junior Sunday School was a lot like Primary now in that we sang songs and had lessons and did the things that the children do now. It seemed though that back then we sang in Stake conference as Primary children at least once every other year if not more often. I really didn't like doing that when I got to be 11 years old because I was just to old for that kind of thing and singing those silly songs. Boy what I didn't understand back then. Passing and blessing the sacrament was fun in the Junior Sunday School however because we were so big, even though we just left there the month before or so when we were deacons. As priest we really towered over the primary children and we were only in there long enough to bless the sacrament and then we were excused to go to our regular classes.

I remember that when I went into the mission field that I served in one area where we traveled 60 miles one way to church, it was from Stephenville to Cleburne. Because of the distance the church allowed them to have Primary meeting and Sunday School at the same time and Priesthood Meeting and Relief Society also during the second hour of Primary and then everyone went in for Sacrament Meeting and so they only served the sacrament once during the last meeting.  We would then at then end of that three hours travel back to Stephenville and have a fireside of some sort that night. I really enjoyed that schedule even though it meant leaving for church sunday mornings at 7:30 AM. They would then still hold MIA during the week in Stephenville at one of the members homes.

It was the only time I had ever been on a consolidated schedule like that but it worked really quite well.

So when the church moved to the consolidated schedule a few years after we were married it was really fun to have it that way again. There was one thing however that I noticed after the church made the move that a lot of members did not observe the sabbath day quite the same. It became to easy to come home and relax and watch sports and do other activities that are not totally keeping in observance of the sabbath day. We used to stay pretty much in our church clothes on Sundays since we had to get dressed again and go back just a few hours later. I do remember however on the farm that we changed a lot of times since we still had to go milk cows and do the chores and that we didn't do in our suits.