Glory, glory hall-lelujah!

When Andrew and I met with our stake president (President Jack Christianson) before getting married, he drew out what I can only describe as football diagrams to counsel us on how to...be...when we were married. He was a quarterback at Weber State University, so he talked about football quite a bit. He told us that we were a team and should be together:

X X

And that sometimes, as children come along, he'd see that team kind of split apart on the pew at church:

X o X

And then:

X o o o X

Which he felt was a real shame. He preferred to see a couple sit together with their children beside them (rather than letting children "push" them apart):

X X o o o

His counsel was to always be a team. And, I mean, we tried that for a few years. It was fairly easy with Rachel. She'd sit on one lap or the other and Andrew and I could sit beside each other. Then Miriam came along and there was still a lap for either child and Andrew and I could sit beside each other. 

By now we've about given up on following this advice because while it may be nice to sit beside each other, it isn't logical, and isn't representative of our unity as a couple at all. Besides, Andrew is so often the organist and for a time I was the chorister, so that means he's up on the stand—or Miriam is up on the stand—or I'm up on the stand. And our current ward has hardly any deacons so Andrew often ends up passing the sacrament with Benjamin before sitting down. 

So we usually end up sitting somewhat like this:

z a N p r b A m

And then by the time Andrew comes to sit down with us, Phoebe is ready to sit on his lap instead of sitting by mine, so we end up like this:

z a N r b A p m

So instead of looking like a tidy football play we look like we're kind of struggling with the alphabet. But I think that's okay because although it's not bad advice (and may even have been good advice), it's not necessarily practical advice. President Christianson himself rarely got to sit beside his wife because he was always on the stand, right?

Plus, we started to hear other advice along the way. One of our bishops (or stake presidents? or was a general authority?), for example, mentioned that he liked to see fathers carrying out screaming babies instead of the mothers. Andrew wanted to help out with our babies more but they were all such momma's babies that they wouldn't sit with him unless they were far enough away from me. That meant Andrew had to be farther away from me so he could wrangle babies and I could enjoy the meeting.

What I'm getting at, I suppose, is that there are times and seasons to things. One day, perhaps, Andrew and I will sit side by side on the pew again. Maybe...if we're lucky...

Today we were sitting in this configuration:

z a N r b A p m

And Andrew got a little tickle in his throat. He's been feeling a little under the weather but came to church anyway—against my good wisdom.

"You should have stayed at home!" I texted him (I'm team "stay at home when you're sick"). 

"I have to do temple lessons with E and J," he texted back. "I'll leave after that. I'll survive."

Though technically what he wrote was "I'll survivorship" because autocorrect was having a great time with him today.

He had a hard time surviving even sacrament meeting, struggling, as he was, against the almost insuppressible urge to cough. When he started getting a little noisy, I shot him an "I told you so" glance and then my watch buzzed—I had an incoming message from Andrew. 

My eyes grew big when I saw the message preview and I whipped out my phone.

"I might go to hell..." my watch had told me and the phone finished for me, "at rest hymn."

"Hall." Andrew texted quickly. "HALL."

But it was too late. 

The damage had been done: I was sitting in the middle of sacrament meeting in an almost insuppressible fit of laughter (and Rachel, who had read over my shoulder was faring little better). 

To make matters worse, the talk was at a very poignant place, where the speaker was talking about the loss of his mother and his sister-in-law and how he and his wife took in their nephew (this sister's son) until he was ready to head off to college and how they got to work through this grief over their mothers together. 

And there I was, sitting front and center—shaking with (silent) laughter.

With my reverence completely shattered, I figured I may as well text my family about this, so I took a screenshot (which you see above) and sent it to them. 

And my brother David wrote back and was like, "Oh, man! This is why I shouldn't check my text messages during sacrament meeting!"

And I wrote back, "Saaaaaame!"

I'm usually pretty good at not texting during sacrament meeting...except to communicate with Andrew, who is usually sitting on the other side of the pew. And before we texted each other we would write on the program (or whatever) and pass it back and forth (like naughty schoolchildren). But we like each other and like to share our thoughts with each other so...

Maybe days like today are the reason President Christianson advised us to sit side-by-side on the pew those many years ago. Perhaps it wasn't to keep us unified as a couple but to prevent little miscommunications like this from happening. Perhaps we should have heeded his advice. 

If we end up going to hall, I think we'll know why...