Monday, April 13, 2020

We have changed...

Yesterday was Easter, which is a special holiday in our house. We have all of our silly traditions on Saturday or Monday (they have Easter Monday here! It's the BEST!) and Sunday is set aside as a day of special worship. A long time ago, Marriner would wake up early on Sunday morning and make paska, a special Ukranian Easter bread, while watching "Special Witnesses of Christ" but that tradition got crowded out as he had various callings that required more work on Easter.

This year, we brought that tradition back a little bit, and watched Special Witnesses of Christ with the family in the morning. Then we all got ready for church. We don't have all our Easter dresses yet - shipping is slow, and so are the sewers. Ok, we put off sewing to paint last week. That's ok, we can take Easter pictures next week :)

One of the counselors in the branch presidency has really done cool things with our branch worship service online. He can get several people on the feed at once, and switch back and forth between the screens. So Ellis was asked to give a talk, and we didn't have to go to anyone's house or anything. Lige gave the prayer, too. Here is a funny story from our our worship service: we were all watching the broadcast on YouTube in one room, while the people who were on camera would go next door to the computer for their turn. As we finished up the opening song, Marriner shouted to Lige, "Are you ready, Lige?" Then Lige came on the screen saying the prayer, and he also walked into the room. What? Turns out, there was like a minute of lag. When Marriner shouted to him, he was in the middle of the prayer. He was so startled, he just ended the prayer and walked over to see what he was supposed to be doing. So we smiled a minute later when we saw him wrap up his prayer quickly on screen. Now we know! :) It was funny to see him in two places at once. During Ellis's talk, Jane got restless and ran around by the camera. Then she came back and sat on Dad's lap. A minute later, Jane suddenly popped up on the screen!

For the past few weeks, we've been uncertain about which language to do the Sacrament in. For our morning home study (a.k.a. Pajama Church) we do English. But as we started doing the sacrament in English, we struggled. We're just used to doing the songs and the prayers in ASL. So yesterday, we just did what came naturally and it all came out in ASL.

What a big change! Two years ago...who would have thought that ASL would have become our language of worship? But Lige hasn't practiced the Sacrament prayer in English - he's learned it in ASL. They don't flip to the prayer in the Book of Mormon or D&C, they pull the video up on their phones. We don't play the piano to sing - we play the music on our phone and sign. That's what we've practiced doing, and it's what we're comfortable doing. At some point my kids are going to have to learn to play and sing with a piano on Sunday, and I doubt it will be a hard transition. But for now, we're just sticking with what's easy and natural.

One thing I enjoyed yesterday was doing my own interpretation of the Sacrament song. Usually, we stick to a translation by a reliable source - a native speaker. But since we're at home, I figured we could do a song we don't usually do, and make our own interpretation for it. And it was fun.

After church, we made our huge dinner, then ate our huge dinner, then put some kids to bed early because they'd been fighting non-stop for the last hour ;) It made for a pleasant evening....hahahah. It was a great Easter. I'm go grateful for the hope that comes through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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