Our church meetings are at 1:00 now. It's been surprisingly hard to adjust to the change. For the past three years church has been at 9:00 (we're the only congregation to meet in our building in Massachusetts). That's pretty much all my kids remember. So 1:00 is different.
Leah wakes up at 7:30am every Sunday and gets herself dressed in her Sunday best: dress, shoes, hair and all. She's always done this. But now she just...waits longer for the actual event. (And maybe looks a little more rumpled for the wait?)
Lainy is the last to get dressed (she likes her pajamas too much), but the first to organize her church bag. She carefully packs her scriptures, a little notebook, some crayons, and always something small for Samuel (usually a car). But once it's packed, she's the one asking for something to do. "Is it time yet?" she asks over and over.
Samuel, my reluctant napper, has reached zombie-like state by the time church is over at 4:00. I worry about him in Nursery... he can get loud and aggressive when he's tired.
Brad is usually at the hospital early Sunday morning trying to see his patients so he can make it to Sacrament Meeting. He's made it every week except one, sometimes still wearing his scrubs (they are an unfortunate bright teal color). Our first week in the Albuquerque ward, Brad came in wearing his scrubs and a jacket. After the meeting someone commented on his pants. "That must be the style in Boston!" she said. Brad tried to hide his horror by laughing it off, "Sorry, no. I just came from work!".
For me, even though the mornings are long and the afternoons too short, and even though getting three kids out the door by myself isn't my favorite, church is home. We walk into the chapel to the soft tune of familiar hymns and I take a deep breathe of belonging. It's amazing to me that we can go pretty much anywhere in this world and find a home and a family in the Church. Brad and I have seen it over and over. In Moscow, in Seattle, in Spokane, in Lynnfield, Massachusetts. It's the one constant in our world of change. With our faith in common, friends become family and strange places feel more like home. And, in this desert place, far away from everything familiar, that has been an incredible blessing. Again.
"That the gathering together upon the land of Zion, and upon her stakes, may be for a defense, and for a refuge from the storm." Doctrine and Covenants 115:6
