Where the Emphasis Is

Generally speaking, observing where an organization spends its money and its time can give you a fairly good idea of the organization's priorities.

Today, our ward's priorities became clearer during the hour-long 5th Sunday combined RS/PH meeting presentation/orientation on (insert drum roll here): Member Care of Church Meetinghouses.

The young men joined us, as did the Primary and young women instructors. The YW were conscripted to teach Primary so all the adults could all attend this meeting.

It began with a Power Point presentation. First, the requisite joke: step-by-step instructions on how to clean the toilet using pet shampoo and the cat, signed the dog, with photos of a wet cat and a dog appearing to convulse with laughter.

The bishopric counselor giving the spiel reassured us we would not have to actually clean toilets. And also said several times this was not being done to save money (although it will).

We received copies of a 1998 letter from The First Presidency asking church members to assume more responsibilities. Attached were forms outlining the cleaning responsibilities and a sample letter describing the cleaning assignments and other families assigned to clean the same month. We'll be notified by letter when it's our turn. No word whether we'd be coordinating or duplicating efforts with McAllen 2nd ward. No snow removal, heh, heh.

After the counselor finished with more Power Point slides, there was unavoidable Q&A--why are there so few trash cans in the building? Why no changing table in the restroom closest to the Primary rooms, RS room and most of the the building's classrooms? How much notice will we get? What if we're not available for our turn?

The Facilities Management guy bore testimony that cleaning our building somehow makes it possible to build more chapels overseas, even though the church has the money to do that anyway. While he babbled about building and maintenance costs in other countries, he started an urban legend that there are more Christians in India than there are in the rest of the world combined. (So earnest and yet so wrong).

Supposedly, we have the OK to do missionary work in India (thanks to the Miracle of the Unnamed Church Bureaucrat who made this possible at GBH's request) but lack the infrastructure and the 65,000 missionaries India purportedly asked for.

I was inspired--to ask Mike to bring his Palm to church today. I played Solitaire throughout the presentation and seethed about the level of effort that clearly went into today's "Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel/Swab the Font" presentation when (just as clearly) no thought/effort went into our ward's Easter Sunday.

Administrivia: 1. Weightier Matters: 0.