Church Schedules
I was recently thinking about the changes of the church that I have witnessed in my lifetime. One of the interesting ones is in the number of meetings and the schedule of those meetings. As a youth I remember going to church in the morning around 10 am to attend Priesthood meeting and Jr Sunday School and when older attending Sr. Sunday School. Those meetings would last until around 12 noon and then we would go home until 7 pm when we would return to Sacrament Meeting. Mother would attend Relief Society during the week and we would go to Primary on Wednesday night after school. Later after turning 12 years old we would go to mutual on Wednesday nights starting at 7 pm.
The Sunday meetings were much like they are today except that we passed the sacrament in Sunday School and Jr Sunday School. When I became a deacon we would meet in our Priesthood Quorum meetings and receive assignments for passing the sacrament. It was always quite fun because we would get to pass in either Sunday School or Jr Sunday School. I liked going to Sunday School to pass but going back to Jr Sunday School was a little harder since I had just “graduated” from going to that room. When I became a teacher we all became pretty efficient at putting cups in the trays because we were doing it twice a day and in the morning for two areas. We even ha d competition to see who was the quickest. Returning that night for Sacrament meeting meant we had to convince the entire family to go early so that we could fill our assignments to prepare the sacrament for that meeting. That wasn’t really hard to do for my family however because mother liked to be early anyway. Dad was a High Council member for many of the years when I was young and I quite often got to ride with him to other wards in Fruitland, Utahn, Tabiona, Hannah, Altamont and Bridgeland where the other wards of the stake were located. It was fun and consequently I had close friends from many of those places from attending Jr Sunday School with them.
During the week we would leave school and walk the three blocks to thee church for primary. That walk took us right past Kohls, our grocery store, and made for a perfect stopping place to buy candy before we went to primary. I still remember buying candy cigarettes which we quickly learned was a bad things when our teachers taught us how the devil was trying to teach us to break the word of wisdom even in a very small way because that would teach us cigarettes were OK. As I look back on it now they were very right even though I didn’t feel that way at the time. We started buying penny candies instead (yes for 1 cent each) to replace the candy cigarettes. When I was 17 I returned again to primary only this time as a teacher of the Guide Patrol class, or the equivalent now of the New Scout patrol, 11 year old scouts. The name for that has changed several times over the years as well and I still find myself calling it Blazers, Guide Patrol and New Scouts. I had a fun time teaching those boys and at an early age learned how to teach. We also went on several camps and did a lot of scouting things.
When I had turned 12 I also started attending MIA or Mutual as we called it and participated in scouting, dancing, basketball and speech events. We had talents show for Mutual and Road Shows and did a lot of cultural type things which for a small community away from the Wasatch front something that we couldn’t do any other way. I began liking Marie at that time and really enjoyed going to Mutual just so I could see her. For scouts, which we held during mutual we got to go a few times to the mouth of Indian canyon and on the low rolling ridges play capture the flag in the dark. That was really cool because we could use extreme strategy hiking sometimes for a half mile around the area just to sneak up from the back on the other camp to get their flag while others were keeping them distracted from the front. Once or twice that worked but usually by the tie we were there our flag had already been captured and the game was over and they were just waiting for us to get their to start it over again. I can’t remember for sure when we would hold firesides but I do remember wanting to attend those so that I could be with Marie. Several times in those firesides they spoke about dating and not single dating but I remember well one couple that came to speak and telling how they had been sweethearts in their youth and she had waited for him to go on a mission before they were married in the temple. I thought then how neat it would be for Marie and I to have the same ending to our story.
After high school I attended Snow College and similar schedules were in place there only Priesthood and Relief Society both met Sunday Morning before Sunday School. Then we would return that night for Sacrament meeting. I was not yet an Elder but attended the Elder’s Quorum meetings as a perspective elder and was often called on to pass the sacrament since I was still a n Aaronic Priesthood member. After the one full year at Snow I was called to serve in the Texas North Mission and found similar Sunday schedules practiced there until I was assigned to Stephenville, TX where there was only a small branch at the time. We would get in car pools and travel to Cleburne 60 miles away for Sunday Meetings so while there we would have Priesthood, Relief Society, Sunday School, Mutual, and Sacrament meetings all in one four hour block then we would return to Stephenville usually stopping about half way for lunch which was pot luck prepared by the sisters that morning before leaving for church.
It wasn’t but a coupe of years later I had returned from my mission that there were rumors in the church that we would be changing our meeting schedules to a consolidated schedule where primary and Relief Society would be moved to Sunday and there would be no more Jr Sunday School and all meetings would be held during a three hour block. I remember thinking how great that would be because I had experienced a similar schedule in the mission and had loved it then. Well it soon happened and we have been on that schedule ever since and none of my children can remember going to Sacrament meeting at 7 pm. That was good because bedtimes were then no longer curling up on a parents lap during Sacrament meeting after the Sacrament had been passed and sometimes even before. I look at mu grandchildren’s bedtime schedules now and wonder how parents ever did it because sacrament meeting was not only started at 7 pm but went until nearly 9pm. MIA is still held during the week and scouting activities are still held during the week but that is the only one that has not been moved to Sunday.
