One of the things I've bean eagerly anticipating while in the US is regular church. There are some definite benefits of home-churching - an hour and a half instead of three hours, for example - but sometimes it's really really nice to just show up and have someone else play the music, give the talks, teach my children, and teach me two lessons to boot. You really don't realize how nice this it until you're the one doing all of this week in and week out. Of course, I know that if I lived here permanently that would not be the case, but it is sure nice to take a break for three months.
My parents left for three weeks a few days ago, and so I've been looking forward to church even more this weekend. I do love my children, but it's also nice to actually spend time with other adults when you've been surrounded by nothing but small children for two and a half days.
Then it snowed. And since this is North Carolina, where snowstorms almost always start off as rain that forms a nice icy slick underneath the inch or two of snow that usually falls, church was cancelled. I'm not sure how bad the roads were - they didn't look too bad to me - but I wasn't about to go and see with my parents' brand new Odyssey. I imagine they're thanking me for this right now.
So that meant no church today. And so the children and I had church at home. Because if there's one thing we're good at, it's having church at home. Obviously some things didn't happen - the sacrament for one - but I thought we did a pretty good job for a lazy pregnant lady and five small children who have been cooped up in the house for the last two days.
We started with a BYU television sacrament program and enjoyed some vintage hairstyles along with the (very short) talks on prayer. Then, feeling virtuous and not frazzled yet, we moved on to primary where I taught a lesson on the Plan of Salvation and even managed to end with a pretty good testimony. The children, much better at this than they used to be, mostly sat quietly (especially after Eleanor went down for a nap) and answered questions and participated. And then church was over. Because by then it was my nap time.
I felt pretty proud of myself for making Sunday feel like something more than just another day stuck in the house while the children pulled it apart, especially as I did it all on my own. But I'm pretty glad that the forecast calls for the weather to warm up on Tuesday. Because I'm willing to go through three hours of church if it means that someone other than me is running the show.