Welcome to Church..you must be NEW in TOWN!!

So I went to church today. That was interesting. I knew I was in the right place because the parking lot was filled with Suburbans and Mini-vans. First of all the building was super small. To the right is my artist rendition of the building scale. The Utah church looks more like a wedding cake than a church, but you get the jist. You could probably fit the whole thing in just the chapel of one of the wards in Utah. I was greeted by the missionaries. One of the missionaries was from Provo. He said to me.."oh southern Utah, so you must be freezing!" I said, "not quite, but I will be!"

I proceeded into the chapel, and as the service started, I couldn't help but notice a couple of things. A) There weren't more people coming.... This was it. The slim 20-30 people that were there, were all that were coming. They made up the branch. There was no bus that was going to drop off a bus load of screaming primary children, or a family that would walk in late, children crying, dad still attempting to tie his tie, moms hair still half wet and B) Everyone was looking at me. It was as if someone had alerted the press that there was a new member in town. They were like those cute little beagles that sniff your bags at the airport. They could smell something different on their home turf.

Well, lucky for me. It was testimony meeting. For those of you who are unfamiliar, its like the Mormon version of open mic. You are your own m.c. J.k. Just a little Mormon humor for you. Anyway. I thought to myself, lets just get this out of the way now so that I don't have to do 30 times later. So I stood up in front of the whole congregation, and introduced myself. I told everyone that I wasn't sure exactly what I was doing in MN, that I left a super great job to come here, and that I knew it was where I was supposed to be.

After the meeting, you would have thought I was Brett Farve at a press conference or something. Holy buckets!! I was surrounded!!! It was questions right and left! Where I was living, if I knew so and so in St. George, where I was working, what I was doing, what callings I had had, if I lived by myself, among so many more. I shook hands with so many people today (which is against my personal belief right now with this whole H1N1 thing) and got so many names thrown at me....I hope they don't give me a pop quiz next week.

A very nice gentlemen said that he would be my home teacher, and wanted to know when would be a good time for he and his partner to come visit. I told him nights are best, but they would be sitting on the floor, or fighting over my one folding chair!!!

To say the least, it was a very eye opening experience. Relief society was made up of seven ladies, including me. I was the youngest one. In fact I could have probably been most of their granddaughters! That's ok though. It was nice to feel so welcome in my new ward/branch. I look forward to going next week! Hopefully they don't try and give me a calling. I am fine with saying the opening prayer every week!