If You Can Hear Me, Touch Your Nose

Andrew and I had to speak in Sacrament meeting this past Sunday. Now I don't know about you guys, but we have lived in this ward for over 6 years and it seems like we speak about once a year. So many members of our ward stand up to give their talk and say how they've lived in our ward for so long but this is their first time giving a talk. That is soooo not the case with us. We're not quite sure why we are asked to speak so often (our last time was only about 6 or 7 months ago) but nevertheless we were asked to speak again. At least we were given a somewhat easy (but broad) topic of The Holy Ghost. I do have to state that there is always a huge advantage when I speak with Andrew though -- he is such an excellent speaker and writes such great talks that I can cut mine down to under 10 minutes and he can take the remainder of the time!!

Of course we had to sit in the audience with our kids during the meeting until it was close to our turn to speak. I quickly walked up when all the deacons were headed to their seats after passing the Sacrament. There was a youth speaker before me and I leaned over and joked with her to read her talk REALLY SLOWLY. She kinda chuckled and said, "Uh, okay."

Here's what I found very interesting......as I sat there on the stand and watched the congregation during the youth speakers' talk, I quickly noticed how the majority of people were all looking down. Hardly anyone was looking up and watching this young woman give her talk. It was that way for the duration of her talk, which lasted about 5 minutes. I'm thinking, what's the deal?? I thought it was kinda funny and wondered what everybody was looking down at ---- Were they nodding off and sleeping? Reading something? Staring at their shoes?

I've been serving in the Primary Presidency for the past 3 months now and as I'm sure you who've had Primary callings know......when you're up in front of a whole bunch of kids you do a lot to grab their attention and try to have reverence. You sing a wiggle song, you fold your arms and wait for them to follow your example and calm down, etc. etc. One little trick I like to do sometimes is quietly whisper and say to the Primary kids, "If you can hear my voice, put your finger on your nose" and then I wait until I can see all the kids touching their noses before I move on.

Well, as I sat there about ready to stand up and give my talk, I quickly switched into Primary mode and thought to myself --- I should stand up at the pulpit and ask everyone to fold their arms, eyes on me, and quietly whisper into the microphone...."Brothers and Sisters, if you can hear me, touch your nose." Of course it would have been totally inappropriate but very funny!!!

Do you think that would have gotten everyone's attention??

Maybe I should have done it.....it probably would have guaranteed me never having to speak in Sacrament again!