For my experience I was originally planning on going to a Catholic confessional. I've never been to one before and I've always thought that it would be interesting. After a little bit of research though I found out that not only are there no Catholic curches in Provo, but they also won't let you go to confessional unless you're Catholic. In retrospect that's probably something that I should have realized but, what can I say.
This information though got me thinking about how I actually know very little about other denominational faiths. Aside from the occasional high school youth groups and Christmas services, I had never been to another denomination's church meeting before. So I looked up the address to the local Jehovah's Whitness church and decided to go to their service on Sunday.
Sunday morning I trekked through the freezing cold and snow farther westward than I had ever been in Provo towards the church. When I arrived and walked in (I'll admit I was about 3 minutes late. I am LDS after all...), I was met by a group of about 200 Hispanic people who were all looking at me.
Apparently that Sunday was the one week when the church had decided to switch the English and Spanish meeting times. But I was prepared to do something that I had never done before, so even though I don't know any Spanish, I was the only Caucasian person in the entire building, and I was getting a few funny looks, I decided to stay for the meeting.
I have no idea what the meeting was about. I caught a few random words like "devil", "children", "why" and numbers. The preacher talked about children a lot and I think that the sermon was on not being prideful, but I'm probably wrong on that.
I wasn't able to stay for the whole meeting. After about an hour and a half (I had assumed that it would a one hour meeting) I had to leave to make it to my own ward meeting, but even though I didn't know what they were saying, it was interesting to see the format of the meetings and to get a general idea of what they were like. I also had no idea there was such a large group of Spanish speaking Jehovah's Witnesses in the area. All in all though it was certain something that I've never done before!
You are so brave!!!! We ran into so many Jehovah Witnesses on the mission and they are hard to try and convert....At least you had a language barrier so you wouldn't get into any bible bashes.
ReplyDeleteThat's very cool. I have to admit that having served a mission in Ukraine (highest per capita population of Jehova's Witnesses in the world) I would be less than excited to go to a kingdom hall, but maybe I should. I'd like to hear what your perspective would have been like if it had been an English speaking congregation.
ReplyDeleteThats a cool assignent. The catholic confessional would have been so cool! Always have wanted to do that!
ReplyDeleteI find that crazy that there is no Catholic churches here in Provo! There would have to at least be one! I can imagine being at the Jehovah Witness's meeting was very interesting and awkward considering it was a Spanish speaking congregation. You are braver than I.
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