This is a picture of my little niece Beatrice bearing her testimony today. She's three.
If you are a member of a ward that has more than one congregation meeting in its chapel, you switched meeting times today.In our building there are three wards and so there are three meeting times: the nine o'clock, eleven o'clock, and the one o'clock. We switched to the one o'clock today, which wasn't so bad until I exited church at four and the sun was almost down.
I think the yearly time change method is archaic. There's got to be a better way. Why not reward a congregation for a job well done? Hence my ...
Matrix Of Reassigning Meeting Operation
(MORMO)
(MORMO)
Each ward clerk is given the following questionnaire. The results are tallied and the ward that has the most points wins. They get to pick their ward time by popular vote because the church is a democracy, as we all know.
- Convert baptisms your ward had this year. Extra credit if the new members currently hold callings ________.
- Ward members who paid eleven percent tithing instead of the usual ten percent __________.
- Testimony meetings that had more men than women speaking. Void if it is the same men every time___________.
- Families who arrived at church before the opening hymn ____________ minus the number of families in the hall during the sacrament __________.
- Pews that aren't littered with crumbs following your meeting__________.
- Dollars donated to certain political campaigns (nobody really kept track) (except they really did so let's use that information to accomplish something positive)___________.
- Awesome people like me who volunteered for low profile callings because they wanted to escape from real life and eat snacks in nursery on Fast Sunday___________.
- Hours spent in meetings before and after church without weeping, wailing, or gnashing of teeth_____________.
- Members who didn't use sports schedules as an excuse to miss cleaning the building on assigned Saturdays__________.
- Complete scripture sets in members possession on a randomly selected Sunday_________. Scriptures on PDAs, Blackberrys and iphones don't count, because you can't mark electronic scriptures, you big cheaters.
- Sundays the bathrooms have been clog-free during your block___________ minus the number of dirty diapers dumped in the mother's lounge_________.
- Pews that haven't been "saved" by crazy old people 15 minutes before the meeting begins_________.
I look forward to seeing this fair and impartial MORMO survey distributed to church members throughout the world. I choose nine o'clock.
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36 comments:
Brilliant, brilliant, and again...BRILLIANT!!!
My husband and I are laughing as I type.
We switched to 1:00 too. It bites.
definitly 9 oclock. especially when you have small children. and especially when you're a nursery leader.
did you miss me today? i think i'm finally done changing diapers.
We have 9:oo am. Neener-neener.
11 for me. got it. neener neener.
You forgot local celebrities. That has to count for something. We switched to 9 and I hate getting up early on Sundays. I prefer our old 12:30 time slot because then we could take the kids home early for naps and we had an excuse!
9:30--- and while we're voting--- on fast sunday church should only be an hour.
Oh gosh I can't handle how good you are.
With this questionnaire our ward will being at 9. 9 PM. And we'll get out at midnight, which is appropriate because that's when the Holy Ghost goes to bed.
You can have my 9:00. I want your 1:00. I'm thinking of switching wards for a year.
Genius, truly. ( Although I have to admit we are the only ward in our building so we always have 10, no matter how naughty or crumbly we are. Don't hate us because our Mormon population is sparse.)
Maybe another qualifier could be to deduct points for every technical foul the men's ward basketball team gets?
I've been reading your blog for awhile but this is my first time commenting and I just have to say.. bahh hahahaha. I adore this! and to continue on Annies comment above I think points should be added for the fouls, I mean basketball is the only place mormons have to get aggression out, its not a true mormon basketball tournament without broken glasses, a concussion or a broken rib.
That is laugh out loud funny. We were just complaining about afternoon church too and we have no toddlers to nap (just the mom and dad are missing our naps).
Consider your survey distributed here. This may be the beginning of a beautiful new way of doing things! haha
We went from 9 to 9:30.
Love it.
What IS it with the old people saving seats!! SHEESH.
Our ward would lose on account of the 900 people that show up 30 minutes early to save a pew. SERIOUSLY. You have to get there at least a half hour early if you want a seat in the chapel. I hate it.
Brilliant post. You do Mo culture SO WELL.
Did you seriously take a picture during Sacrament meeting??!! You go, girl!! I wish I had the guts to do that! I've always wanted to. Did you at least turn off the flash?
We're the only ward in our building, so we are permanantly at the 10 AM slot. But I love your idea!
The picture made me belly laugh.
Okay, all I have to say is, Lady...You. are. brilliant.
Oh my goodness, too funny. My ward TOTALLY deserves the 9:00 schedule we have now because we excelled at the first 11, sadly, I know whose ward your were referring to on number 12. We once sat in a pew with the more mature members of the congregation, and let's just say, it didn't go well, and we relegated ourselves back to the overflow, where we will happily stay until my children are all out of the house.
I'm pretty sure the church is truer at 9:00 then it is at 1:00. We have 1:00 church and the only thing I have to say about that is that it is better than 3:00 church. We had that one for a while last year.
I forwarded your survey on to our Stake President. We'll see what happens.
Seriously, you are too funny and where do you come up with this stuff...(during the sacrament) I am sure not, but really very clever. I think you need to right a book on mormom culture. And you will need to visit the beehive state to do your research.....I will go with you to do research and then we can go skiing every other day!
that would be "write a book" not "right a book" sorry my brain can only do so many loads of laundry before it starts losing brain cells.
I'm going to have stage an intervention on picture taking in Sacrament Meeting. I'm worried about the salvation of Paige. I can't sleep at night over it. :)
Pure inspiration.
I think people who clip their fingernails, scratch family members' backs, file nails, or sleep should sit in the back.
I hate sitting on the fold out chairs with kids. My kids like to bang their toys all over them.
I love that you took a picture of Bea during Sacrament meeting! We just switched to 11 am from 9 am, and I'm loving it. It would have been nice to have the 1 pm schedule during my first trimester though... I wouldn't have missed 3 months of church.
Celia, I don't think we've ever met but I am friends with your brother Phil. I'm also Sabrina Cordon's daughter...if you know who she is. Anyway, you are absolutley-pee-your-pants-hilarious. I actually laughed out loud when I read this post.
I'm all about this. We have three wards in our building too, but oddly, we rarely switch times. I just think this should be used as a general indicator of righteousness in wards. You know all those people who claim to be looking up scriptures on their blackberries are really just checking sports scores (or blogging).
Anyway, one of the wards in our building is a YSA ward, and I guess everyone figures they should always just have 1 pm because they can't get out of bed before then.
Are you really in nursery right now? I am. And oh yes, I'm all about eating goldfish crackers on fast sunday. Did it yesterday, in fact. Also, I can usually hide a Diet Dr. Pepper in the toy closet. Nice.
I've been meaning to comment here since I saw you at Women's Conf- come over to my blog and see me sometime- it is a goal of mine to attempt to blog regularly this year. I'm not as funny as you though- never was.
Megan
Genius!
I love your Mo posts best of all.
We are the only ward in our building and 10 am is perfect year-in and year-out.
However, the new Primary assignments are always traumatic.
Our ward has a problem with tardiness...my friend and I always thought a clever token system would improve things. Everyone in their seats on time for Sac Mtg gets a coin for the vending machine in the foyer. Said machine distributes Diet Cokes, Hershey bars and #10 cans of rolled oats for the die-hards.
Celia,
I have been reading your posts since Kendal Buckley referred me over. I have to say I LOVE YOUR MO posts. They are hilarious. We just switched to 9am from the 1pm slot and I'm liking it so far except for fast Sunday is worthless. Instead of church helping us fast until dinner time, we came home and ate dinner at 2:30p (needed time to prepare). My kids were very confused on Sunday when 5:30p hit and I said we already ate dinner. We'll see how it works out.
I must say that we are only getting a teaser of 9am because our building is getting remodeled beginning at the end of February and we'll be driving out to Napa for 1pm meetings again.
Thanks for keeping me laughing!
oh, and btw, you can highlight scriptures in your pda (I can, at least!), but now I have to bring the real thing since I was just called as YW Pres and need to set an example.
Shannon (remember me from the Brentwood 1st) :)
Okay...here is a new one:
WHAMMO (hey wasn't that a toy manufacturer?)
Who Hates Attending Meetings Mormon
Now that I am back to civilian Mormon meeting times (instead of the 3.5 hours of meetings BEFORE church even started...BTW, that is why I always fell asleep in sac meeting...I was tired from all the meetings preceding the meetings) I would add one more criteria for your scoring Matrix...Meeting Efficiency. I love when Carl runs meetings because that Business Exec comes out in him and he runs a tight meeting!
Okay, NO ONE rats me out for reading your blog during working hours...the mortgage needs to be paid!
your mormon mockery posts are always such a hit. why is that, i wonder? are we such an easy target?
don't answer that.
This is good stuff.
We switched to 9 this year...don't hate. Next year, we'll be at 2...blah. Hurry and implement this system before next year.
Maybe you should move across the Bay...my dh's old ward doesn't share the building and they're always at 10.
We have all the good stuff in our ward, we deserve that 9:00 schedule that we currently have, oh except for one thing.....We have the elderly people that horde all the good pews. We tried to get one once, it wasn't well received, so we have come to grips that we are permanently an overflow family. No matter how early we may arrive at Sacrament meeting, that is where our assigned seating is. Some day I will be able to see the speaker without my glasses on, maybe when Travis leaves for his mission?
PS the church posts are just my most favorite of all and our pure genius! I hear Sheri Dew is calling from Deseret Books for a book deal on Mormon humor for you!
hahaha, this was great! :-) Great blog! Glad I ran across ya!
That was awesome.
I just switched to 9. It rocks. I have 2 in nursery. I'm sure you know better than I how crappy 1:oo is.
Love your blog.
Look at Pres Edgren in the picture. Is that a cringe or what? What exactly did Bea say, anyway, to make him hide behind his hand?
And I think you should add "Number of families who have actually met their food storage goals for the year. Storing diet coke DOES count."
We also just went to 9:00. It's like winning the lottery!
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