Living my Religion

Church signs

Go here to check out my church sign photos.

While at Cracker Barrel a few weeks ago, I saw the above book, The Great American Book of Church Signs. It was very fun to rummage through. This book is a compilation of a very important part of Southern living: the church sign. I have to admit that even though I have never even stepped foot inside of a church that sports any type of unique church sign, the signs are one of my favorite aspects of Southern living.

For my many Western friends. Let me explain. In the South a person in a vehicle can pass a different church at about every block. Under the name of the congregation, each of those churches usually display a block letter sign with a new weekly message. There seems to be an unspoken competition going on. The winner of the competition will win the most parishoners for the following Sunday. How will the church sign do that? Well, of course, the parishioners will not be able to resist attending because of the originality or perfect humor of the church sign.

I grew up in California where all church signs were very bland. Their sole purpose was to let the passer-by know which domination was represented. In Utah, it seems that every church has the same The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sign etched in granite out front. Which, in its own way is entertaining, given that you will have two exactly similar signs sported a block apart.

But, in the South, the church sign is vital for the spread of Christianity and humor. I am unsure how the church sign tradition got started, but I am sure it has to do with some unorthodox Baptist preacher a few hundred years ago. And, yes, he must have been a good preacher because he can take credit for even teaching this Mormon how to be a better Christian. Here are some of the messages from the signs that I have seen recently:

Lost? Get a GPS (God’s plan of salvation)

You think it’t hot here.

Who’s your daddy?

Free trip to heaven, details inside.

Church parking only – violators will be baptized.

God loves you and he approves this message.

Wal-Mart is not the only saving place.

God answers knee-mail.

Friends don’t let friends go to hell.

Don’t make me come down there. ~ God

If God is your co-pilot, switch seats.

The wage of sin is death, repent before payday.

At the heart of sin is the letter I.

Pessimists need a kick in the cant’s.

So, feel free to add your favorite Southern church sign in a comment. Whenever we all get over the flu at my house, and I can actually think I may try to come up with some signs that they can adopt to put in front of the Mormon churches in Utah. Here are a few off of the top of my fried sick brain:

Join our ward, the boundary is unlimited.

Our Bishop is better than yours!

Is your sacrament bread homemade?

Join us, every Sunday is fast.

Yeah yeah, these are week; I am sick! I can’t stop coughing, so I am going to go. I just didn’t want to be banned to my own bi-weekly blogger list.

Was I Right?

I missed the Top 24 American Idol show because I was at the church singing in the choir Wednesday night. Yes, I am only good enough for the church choir…not that it mattered, I was way too old before the first season.

But, I am catching up on my American Idol obsession online today. My obsession is a good thing for one reason…I cannot tell you how many American Idol google searches have come to my blog!!! Google is a good thing!

Here is the nanny, Brooke White, that I made mention to in a previous American Idol post.

What do you think? Mormon or not? If you don’t think she is a Mormon just watch this linked interview and see if it changes your mind.

Happy watching…I will be keeping tabs on this girl.

I have only watched 7 of the contestants interviews, but my other favorite so far is the Harley riding nurse, Amanda Overmyer. I just love her humility, practicality, and self acceptance….it’s almost just like my hubby’s personality. She made mention to Ryan Seacrest always giving her a hard time because she is never excited. Sometimes I tell my hubby to act just a little more excited also, but if I am totally honest, LG’s mildness is just perfect for me. Crazy people like me need people like them to give us a calm among our own manmade storms.

P.S. Just did some searching….I was right. And, David Archuleta, who I also like a lot, is also a Mormon. (Hello, I should have known, he’s from SLC) With two chances in one season, maybe the Mormons will have a better showing than they did in the presidential election. What do you think?

Dead People

Abigail went out with her group of church girls last night and sang to some people at a nursing home. (This picture is not from last night, but from a school thing last year – I included the pic. to give you the idea of how cute 8-11 year olds) Aren’t they darling? I am sure the nursing home loved their company last night.

Anyhow, on the way home, I was very impressed with Abigail’s observations of the night. She was telling me all about the people that she met.

“Mom, there was this really old guy who was 97. There was a lady who was deaf and they had to write everything on a paper for her. There was a black guy, and it was his birthday.” She even told me the people’s names.

Sophia and Bella were listening to the conversation and started asking Abigail questions about her adventure. Bella being inquisitive about the aforementioned deaf person asked me, “Mom why would they sing to a dead person?”

I was glad that the girls were paying attention to Abigail’s story, but who would have guessed the dead person association of my 4 year old? I guess I better start writing my mommy speech now for reassuring Bella when it is her turn to go to a nursing home to sing. Really, how am I going to handle this with honesty? It’s not like I can say, “No Bella, don’t worry, there aren’t any dead people at nursing homes.”

This reminds me of another story. Back in December, we had an unfortunate death in the congregation that shares our building. I was in charge of our ward party that was to happen the evening following the funeral. I had a bunch of things that I needed to drop of at the church early because I had to work the next morning. So I stopped by the church late after the funeral was over.

I wasn’t sure if they would have left the casket at the church overnight until the following day’s graveside service. (I believe they did this with Grandma Gold in VA – every state law is different to this effect and I wasn’t sure what TN law was) As my girls love to run the round hallways as soon as they get into the church, I warned them to stay close by because there may be a casket in the cultural hall. You can imagine where the conversation went from there…

“Mom, what’s a casket?” “Why do dead people sleep in a casket?” “Why do they leave dead people in the church?” “What’s a funeral?”

I had tried to play off all the questions so that they wouldn’t be too afraid of ever entering the church ever again. I had told the girls that a funeral would be over the next morning and there was no reason to be afraid because a funeral is “like a party for dead people”. O.k. hindsight is always 20/20! Yes, I could and should have given a better explanation than that.

If you couple Bella’s amazing imagination with her slight anxiety, you can imagine what she thought was going on in the church at the party for dead people. I was surprised that she still wanted to go inside when I had given her the chance to just stay in the car while I ran a few things in. Do you think that she was showing bravery or did the sure terror of being alone in the van when the party all came out of the building egged her forward into the building with mom? I think it must have been the latter, the way she was clinging to my leg.

Either way, whenever I die, I hope all my girls will remember that they are invited to my party for dead people.

‘Tis better

Alfred Lord Tennyson: ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Romney is officially out. All I have to say is what I wrote in my comment to this article Fox News atricle:

“I think it would be a digression of a few hundred years to get someone like
Huckabee in The White House. He is totally religiously prejudiced. As a Mormon,
I cannot support him, knowing how he feels about my religion.

I have NEVER heard Romney put anyone else down…yes, he has faught the issues to the core, but he has never personally attacked anyone or their religious beliefs. He embodies Christianity and I think it is a shame that the people of our country have failed to see that a belief in God is one of the most important factors for this country to continue to be strong. How many people just turned their heads to Bill Clinton and his charade?

This speech was brilliant! As a conservative, I agreed with every word. Our societal woes are the things that the majority of our society want to continue to ignore (especially the liberal democrats) Romney’s willingness to speak of such things is music to many of our ears.

I don’t think that the end of the world is near because Romney has pulled out. I do think that it is the end of the world because so many people in the land of the free and home of the brave, have completely forgotten the God who has given them all the opportunities in the world.

It’s a shame that many of those people are members of the Republican Party.

It is time to form a new party I think!”

Romney’s best quote of the day, “The threat to our culture comes from within.”
The announcement according to abc and cbs and lastly, cnn.

I never knew she noticed.

Here is an image for our church’s website.

This is what happened at the school today while I was there working with the kids.

Taylor: “Mrs. Gold, what church do you and Abigail go to?”

Me: “We attend The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

Abigail: “It’s a mouthful, isn’t it?”

My question, would it really be a horrible sin to go back to telling people that we are Mormon? It is just so hard for those of us that have to answer this question every day.

God is good

Across the street lives a Bible Methodist preacher, whom we respect. He was given this ugly poo green van from a Baptist church. It has been an eye sore that has never left the confines of their front lawn for the past two years.

Last week, through a powerful storm, God took care of the eye sore for us. We were surprised when the preacher informed us that they were grateful that God took care of it for them too. I guess they hadn’t known what to do with the donated van! Now, all I can do is hope that the demolished van won’t sit there in this pathetic state for another couple of years. God would have to send a tornado next to take it away (because you know it won’t be translated). We were very fortunate that this week’s recent storms didn’t make it this far east. God really has watched over us.

The bad news associated with the riddance of the van was that our power was out for 36 hours. This tree also took out the preacher’s power line which shorted the transformer box to just three houses. The power company had about 4,000 customers to get back up and running after the storm. Our three houses were probably the lowest on the priority list.

I spent the day at a friend’s house (isn’t having your power out a good excuse to miss school) and we decided to come back home and sleep. We tried to turn it into an adventure for the kids. We heat up our small room with our camp heater and made a makeshift bed for the girls that was built up high enough to be even with the height of our bed. It got down to the 20’s outside and the 40’s in the house.

The kids wore two pairs of pj’s, hats, and socks. (these cute animal hats were a gift from Korea, if any of you have seen the missing tiger, would you let me know – Bella wasn’t happy that she had to wear a plain old taboggan) The girls thought that the most fun part was counting the amount of blankets I put over the top of them. 13! They also really enjoyed the emergency crank flashlight/radio. They were amazed at how they could tune to different channels. They really do live a sheltered life, don’t they?

We couldn’t put them to sleep without our nightly scripture study. We are trying to read the whole Book of Mormon again this year. Here is LG reading with the assistance of a flashlight. You can’t see LG’s face or the flashlight between his face and the book. (just in case you couldn’t make that observation yourself)

God and KUB blessed us a second time within the 36 hour timeframe and had the power fixed at 4 am, just when it started to get really cold. This is how we found the girls the next morning. So much for the blankets and hats.

Preachin Politics
An old country preacher had a teenage son, and it was getting time the boy should give some thought to choosing a profession. Like many young men, the boy didn’t really know what he wanted to do, and he didn’t seem too concerned about it.

One day, while the boy was away at school, his father decided to try an experiment.
He went into the boy’s room and placed on his study table four objects:
a Bible,a silver dollar,a bottle of whiskyand a Playboy magazine ‘I’ll just hide behind the door,’ the old preacher said to himself, ‘when he comes home from school this afternoon,I’ll see which object he picks up.If it’s the Bible, he’s going to be a preacher like me and what a blessing that would be! If he picks up the dollar, he’s going to be a businessman, and that would be okay, too. But if he picks up the bottle, he’s going to be a no-good drunkard,and, Lord, what a shame that would be.And worst of all, if he picks up that magazine he’s gonna be a skirt-chasin’ bum.’

The old man waited anxiously, and soon heard his son’s footsteps as he entered the house whistling and headed for his room. The boy tossed his books on the bed, and as he turned to leave the room he spotted the objects on the table. With curiosity in his eye, he walked over to inspect them.

Finally, he picked up the Bible and placed it under his arm.
He picked up the silver dollar and dropped it into his pocket.
He uncorked the bottle and took a big drink while he admired this month’s Centerfold.
‘Lord have mercy,’ the old preacher disgustedly whispered, ‘He’s gonna run for Congress!’

VOTE FOR MITT. He’s only got the Bible and the silver dollar.