A few simple questions for consideration and discussion regarding your ward’s Mother’s Day festivities:
1. Priesthood Choir or Primary Choir?
2. Flowers or Cookies?
3. Oh, My Father, or Love at Home?
4. Old People or Young People?
5. Spiritual Feast or Cringe-Fest?
By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog 
Forced myself to go to church; blogged and texted during church because I finally made Bill sit where nobody could see what I was doing. A couple of okay talks; disregarded any comment on mothering since I suck as a mother. Got a geranium (they smell awful!) to plant. Went home and slept most of the day. Grandkids brought flowers and sticky kisses. Left, as a present to me :). Had spaghetti while Bill and I watched The Visitor (great show) and went to bed in the middle of it. Glad it’s over.
Primary
Pie
Love at home i think
Both
Spiritual Feast
I am of the view that the bloggernaccle tends to over-react to Mothers day based on my anecdotal exp in the church
Primary
Chocolate
Neither
Mixed
Mixed.
I am of the view that bbell tends to over-react to Mothers day discussions in the bloggernaccle based on my anecdotal exp in the church
Primary
Cookies
Love at Home
Both
Spiritual
1. Priesthood Choir or Primary Choir? Primary.
2. Flowers or Cookies? Chocolate, handed out by the Young Women, at the foyer doors for the mothers, after Sacrament Meeting. No awkward standing there for moms and no awkward sitting there for non moms.
3. Oh, My Father, or Love at Home? Love at Home. Ick.
4. Old People or Young People? Only one talk on motherhood, and it was a by a young woman. It was outstanding (quoted Ballard’s wonderful talk, and not a single one from Julie Beck).
5. Spiritual Feast or Cringe-Fest? Spiritual feast. Thank you, oh enlightened bishopric!
1. Primary
2. Neither. Candy
3. Neither. Home can be a Heaven on Earth
4. Neither. Middle-aged people
5. I have no idea. Out in the lobby with misbehaving kids.
1. Priesthood Choir or Primary Choir? neither, it was a piano duet unrelated to motherhood
2. Flowers or Cookies? nothing
3. Oh, My Father, or Love at Home? “I’ll go where you want me to go”
4. Old People or Young People? young couple
5. Spiritual Feast or Cringe-Fest? neither. Our bishopric obviously decided to go the route of ignoring Mother’s day other than acknowledging it during the announcements. The talks were on discipleship and attending the temple. Seemed a little odd, but other than wishing I’d gotten some chocolate, it was fine.
1. Both
2. Lindor Chocolate
3. Both
4. Both
5. Cringe-Fest-ish
1. Primary
2. Flowers (pretty white ones; my wife wanted chocolate)
3. Love at Home
4. Mix
5. Neither
1. Primary Choir
2. Cookies (were handed out in RS)
3. Love at Home (was the closing hymn with an intro from D. Fletcher that was personal and excellent.)
4. (mostly) Young People
5. Spiritual Feast
I loved sacrament meeting at church yesterday.
*Primary
*Lunch
*Can’t remember, but neither
*Me (I had my first baby 7 weeks ago… they thought I would be able to talk about being a mother- HA! I talked about my mom and my husband)
*cringe- because I was giving a talk and that’s never fun ; )
1.Primary
2. Neither; we did have muffins, fruit & juice in RS (and I think the same was distributed to women with callings in Primary & YW)
3. Neither
4. Mixed
5. Spiritual Feast.
1. Primary Choir
2. Chocolate
3. Both
4. Both
5. Neither
1. Primary Choir
2. cheesecake and pie
3.How Gentile God’s Command (that is how it was printed in the program)
4. Young People
5. Neither
1. Primary Choir
2. Chocolate cupcake with mousse filling (must say – love this LDS tradition)
3. Love at Home
4. Both
5. Neither – kind of heretical?
1. Priesthood Choir (2 songs!)
2. Cookies and a VT Conference whilst the men manned the primary & nursery
3. Both. Big time.
4. Young People.
5. See #6’s response.
1. Primary (two songs–the junior primary sang one, then the senior was supposed to sing one. The only senior primary child there was an 11-year-old boy. He sang a solo, beautifully).
2. Donation to a women’s shelter. (In Relief Society, the RS presidency supplied some food. My wife tells me there were cream puffs; I hear there may have been blondies and/or cookies, too.)
3. Love at Home, played beautifully by D.
4. Both (I think–we had various emergencies during Sacrament Meeting that meant that I was in and out the whole time, as was my wife).
5. See #4 (although most of what I heard was tended more toward feasting than cringing).
1. Priesthood Choir – We were awesome. I got several complements from ladies the rest of the block.
2. Chocolates
3. We sang love at home as the Priesthood Choir number. The other Hymns were. . .largely unrelated to families/mothers
4. Young and Middle aged. . .
5. Spiritual Feast – I would say overall it was a successful meeting.
1. Primary/R.S. singing Teach Me to Walk (blech…I am the Primary chorister but did NOT choose the song. My kids did really well despite the song).
2. Potted plant for all adult women.
3. Neither. I remember only “Sweet Is the Work.”
4. Middle-aged mother, young mother, young woman.
5. Neither.
1. Primary Choir and Ward Choir
2. Selections of cakes after Relief Society
3. Love at Home
4. 20-something, 60-something, 50-something
5. Spiritual Feast, punctuated by well-placed gentle humor.
1. Priesthood choir (bonus points for acapella?)
2. Flowers, picked up by the husbands in Elders Quorum to be given to wives after Relief Society (I’m in a BYU student ward, so they figured this would cover everybody.) (Too bad my husband is semi-active and wasn’t at church that day.)
3. Love at Home
4. One ward member (young married) and one (interminable) older High Councilman.
5. Not sure–I spent most of Sacrament Meeting working on my gospel doctrine lesson. So I guess I vote for spiritual feast–I learned a lot.
I guess I should add that one of the things I did catch from the ward member’s talk is the acknowledgement that women sometimes have to work outside the home and that they can still be good mothers while doing so. So I guess that’s a win. Then the high councilman went on a weird tangent about wives mothering their husbands.
1. Primary sang “I often go walking.” I love that song.
2. Pansies.
3. Both
4. A priest and both full-time missionaries (elders)
5. Sacrament meeting was quite good. The speakers did a nice job.
1. Both
2. 4″ nursery plants, variety to choose from, mostly flowers but a few vegetables that were the first to go (we’re a practical lot)
3. Love at Home
4. 2 teens, one late 50s (?) man
5. Spiritual feast. The teens thanked their moms and were short and sweet. The man said he hadn’t given a talk in a decade and was pretty sure it was because Bishops were afraid of what he would say, which he seemed to think was not an entirely unjustified fear. It was frankly a frightening beginning to a talk! He went on to say that a woman he knows skips Mother’s Day Sacrament Mtg every year, and though he doesn’t fully understand why, he would try to make his talk such that women like her would not be hurt by it. It was a good talk.
Re 22: Agh! mothering husbands? Hate the idea. I hope he wasn’t advocating that!
1. Primary
2. Brownies
3. Neither (though we did sing Love at Home in RS)
4. Both
5. Both
I think this marked the first Mother’s Day sacrament meeting where I felt guilty for not being a better mother. But in fairness to the speakers, I have kind of sucked as a mother these last few weeks.
1. Primary choir
2. A single red rose to all women 18 and older handed out after sacrament meeting by YM & YW while the entire congregation sat there waiting.
3. Both
4. YW, 20-something single sister, bishop.
5. Lots of fun playing with my daughter in the gym.
1. Priesthood Choir or Primary Choir?
Primary choir and a solo by our best soprano. The other ward actually had a male choir sing.
2. Flowers or Cookies?
Chocolate.
3. Oh, My Father, or Love at Home?
Love at Home, and Families Can Be Together Forever. (When will they add a decent Mother’s song into the hymnbook?)
4. Old People or Young People?
A couple spoke that are about 45 years of age.
5. Spiritual Feast or Cringe-Fest?
Not bad. I always hate hearing people speak about their parents for a whole meeting, though. Seems somehow narcissistic. Also makes those of us who were not raised in good families feel like we were left out.
After sacrament meeting the bishop stood up and said that we could all go home and spend time with our families, canceling the final two hours. I heard from one of the bishop’s counselors that the stake president (who is from our ward) wasn’t happy and gave the bishop some “counsel.”
Primary
None
Neither
Both
??? I was working on a lesson for Elders Quorum, but my wife who desperately wants to be a mother loved it. Probably because none of the talks were about mothers directly.
I wasn’t sure how to react to the opening prayer by a priesthood holder that mentioning Heavenly Mother.
*mentioning = mentioned
To follow up on my #24, one thing I liked was that our plants were set up on tables just outside the main doors, so you could take one or not take one (no awkward pressure one way or the other regarding whether you qualify, no self-conscious standing up in Sac Mtg), and take it at your convenience. Too many a carnation handed out at the end of the 1st hour end up utterly destroyed by the time they get home. Plants are more durable anyway, plus picking it up on the way to the car means no lugging it around, squishing it, losing it, etc.
>I wasn’t sure how to react to the opening prayer by a priesthood holder that mentioning Heavenly Mother.
I would have said, “Amen!”
1. Priesthood Choir or Primary Choir?
Primary
2. Flowers or Cookies?
Flower
3. Oh, My Father, or Love at Home?
Neither
4. Old People or Young People?
Both
5. Spiritual Feast or Cringe-Fest?
Hmm. Missionary homecoming that had nothing to do with mothers. Then a man spoke mostly about his scout campout last week, but he did ask the boys what they like about their moms. Cute, but dismayed that most of them said it was her cooking. First, I want to be loved for something other than my cooking. Second, I’ll never be loved for my cooking anyway.
What I was really hoping for is that a woman would be considered worthy to say the opening prayer this week. Not so.
>Then a man spoke mostly about his scout campout last week
Wait a second…
1. Primary choir.
2. Neither — CD of hymn arrangements instead.
3. Love at Home.
4. Younger people talked, older people in audience.
5. Nothing cringe-worthy. It was three pretty secular-oriented tributes to mothers and womanhood.
1. Primary Choir
If our Priesthood sang alone the members would leave Church with PTSD
2. Flowers
3. Can’t remember except I knew the words so it had to be one of those primary hymns
4. 75% young/24% middle aged/ 1% old
5. Spiritual Feast
Great talks by both the wife and husband. Wife as always cries and seems more sincere but the husband sang a song at the end of his talk and it was great.
1. N/A
2. N/A
3. N/A
4. Both.
5. Spiritual Feast
Actually, the only time mothers day was mentioned at all was when the concluding speaker noted this was the third mothers day in a row he’d been asked to speak. And then he spoke on the assigned topic of reverence as had the speakers before him.
I missed it. I was still getting the stragglers ready for church. I heard rumors though.
1. Primary
2. Chocolates
3. No clue, both probably
4. 50-50
5. No clue, probably a little of both
Wait a second…
8)
1. Priesthood Choir or Primary Choir?
Primary. At least they’re cute when they’re off-pitch
2. Flowers or Cookies?
Neither. We gave all the adult women the new Gospel Art Book. Cookies will get stolen by kids and flowers destroyed by them.
3. Oh, My Father, or Love at Home?
Ummm… Neither Maybe O My Father if you only sing the Momdess verse. Love At Home should be taken out of the hymn book for criminal dissonance. I’ve never heard a version I liked and it’s ten times worse if ANYONE is even SLIGHTLY off-pitch.
4. Old People or Young People?
Old
5. Spiritual Feast or Cringe-Fest?
Hopefully just quiet so that the moms and kids can all take a nice nap through the talks.
Oops, it was supposed to be “how was it?” not “how should it have been?”
Primary
Gospel Art Book
Love at Home. I almost killed myself.
One youth speaker gave a nice talk on moms and then the other speakers just gave their standard “moving out of the ward on Friday” talks.
I don’t know, but the baby my wife stole from the lady sitting in front of us sure was cute.
1. primary choir–all the way! love the little kids singing
2. neither–our ward donates money to a local women’s shelter in lieu of flowers. I think it is a wonderful idea. Rather than fuss with flowers and trying not to offend, we are giving something important to women to whom life has been quite cruel.
3. Oh, my father
As a mother, I hate love at home. It drives me batty-not to mention feel guilty.
4. we had both–primary kids spoke, one teenager, and then a grandfather. It was done very well.
5. This sunday was a spiritual feast for me–which I needed in preparation for the chaos of primary.
40–
“2. Flowers or Cookies?
Neither. We gave all the adult women the new Gospel Art Book.”
Wow! What a great idea! (I’m the practical sort)
Could somebody who is good at music please hurry up and write a hymn called O My Mother? Father’s day is coming up in just a few weeks.
The song was:
As Sisters in Zion – sung by PH choir…except the person was changed “As sisters in Zion YOU all work together, the blessings of God on YOUR labours YOU seek…” etc.
Quite nice.
Primary Choir—I Often Go Walking (my daughter complained that they always sing this song)
Nothing given out.
Neither O My Father nor Love at Home
One youth speaker and 2 older men
Mostly neutral.
Only one comment from the second talk caused me to raise an eyebrow–something about how wonderful mother’s are and if a parent has to die, for the children’s sake it should be the father. (Huh?)
Wow! #28….A Maverick Bishop. I hope the teachers in the 2nd and 3rd hours had been given the heads up so they didn’t spend time preparing a lesson!
How many wards had the Elders and Priests take over primary for the day? Ours did.
I can’t wait until Father’s Day when the sisters take over conducting and presiding in all the meetings so the men can rest.
I can’t wait until Father’s Day in Nameless’ ward when somebody gives the same talk including “if a parent has to die, for the children’s sake it should be the father.”
Here goes:
1. Priesthood Choir or Primary Choir? Primary Choir and Ward Choir sang a special arrangement of “To Walk in the Light”.
2. Flowers or Cookies? White roses, wilted by the time my wife got it home.
3. Oh, My Father, or Love at Home? Neither
4. Old People or Young People? Two teenagers talked about Youth Conference over the weekend, and then about their mothers, and then our two bishopric counselors talked about mothers.
5. Spiritual Feast or Cringe-Fest? Hmm. mostly nice, but one of the counselors did also mention hybrid cars, locally grown produce, and sustainable life styles.
Note to # 28 and # 47: When I was bishop, I did this once, and also got “counseled”, but mostly by my primary president, who had special things planned for sharing time. SP also frowned. Didn’t do it again.
I didn’t attend my home ward; I was at a small ward in Honolulu on Mother’s Day.
1. Primary Choir
2. Flowers–carnation
3. Oh, My Father, or Love at Home?–Neither (Is that bad?)
4. Old People or Young People?–Lots of older people; tiny Primary & smallish YM/YW representation
5. Spiritual Feast or Cringe-Fest?–Spiritual!
1. Primary choir
2. handmade card and hershey kisses
3. ??? O My Father in the postlude music. Maybe Love at Home, but I’m not sure. Families can be Together Forever as the closing song.
4. Old People (the speakers)
5. It was fine. I wouldn’t call it a spiritual feast, but I’m all hardened and bitter. It certainly didn’t suck.
Mark B., hymn #296, “Our Father by Whose Name” is an EXCELLENT choice for Father’s Day. Lovely tune, wonderful sentiment, and not overdone.
1. Both (three special musical numbers – two from the whole primary and one small group of fathers with their children)
2. Chocolate
3. Both. I was chorister in both Sacrament meeting and R.S. on Sunday. I didn’t choose the music for sacrament meeting so we sung both Love at Home and Home Can Be a Heaven on Earth (I felt hugely embarrassed thinking that people probably thought I chose them, but at least we took Love at Home at a very brisk pace). We did verses 3 and 4 of O My Father for R.S. (and, yes, I got to choose that time).
4. Two Young Men and a youngish dad
5. Not bad – not a spiritual feast, but certainly not the usual cringe-fest (hooray!). I’d say it was a spiritual filling meal.
1. Priesthood Choir or Primary Choir? Primary and Youth.
2. Flowers or Cookies? I didn’t stick around for the treat, it was during RS, but I’m guessing something sugar-loaded.
3. Oh, My Father, or Love at Home? Love at Home.
4. Old People or Young People? Mixed. In our ward, the question should be Male or Female? Had all male speakers. A common thing in our ward and it drives me crazy.
5. Spiritual Feast or Cringe-Fest? More spiritual than cringe.
1. Music, Primary Choir opening, YW Choir closing
2. Gift, a chocolate
3. Song, Love at Home
4. Speakers, our graduating HS seniors
5. Results, a good meeting
The speakers spoke about their mothers. Who can argue with that, or deny their genuine feelings for their mothers? Everyone has a mother. The problem comes when we turn Mothers Day into Motherhood Day.
We sang Love at Home, but fortunately it was done at a good pace instead of the customary quarter of the recommended tempo, or we’d still be at it.
Memo to music directors and organists: When it takes ten seconds to get through each one of those half notes at the end, every sound is hell not joy, and time doth no longer glide softly and sweetly.
We got a Mary Fielding Smith/ox/annointing reference in one of our talks. And the Primary Choir tried to trick things up with songs no one recognized, and bells. Flat.
1. Primary, doing “I Often Go Walking”
2. Flowers.
3. Love at Home.
4. Both.
5. Closer to feast than fest.
1. Primary and a Duet by a YM and a YW – Primary did “Mother, I love you” and a version of Popcorn Popping with words they made up themselves. The two teenagers sang a beautiful song called Thankful that I had not heard before.
2. Roses handed out at the door at the end of the 3 hour block. Homemade goodies in RS.
3. Neither. “I am a Child of God”
4. Both. An 8th grader, Me (40s) and a High Priest (50s) The opening AND closing prayers were offered by women.
5. Don’t know and couldn’t say since I gave one of the talks.
1. Primary singing “Love is Spoken Here”
2. Tulips AND treats baked by the men of the branch
3. Home Can Be A Heaven on Earth
4. 2 sort of middle-aged people
5. One dull talk that had nothing to do with mothers and one excellent talk about women from the scriptures, and not just women in motherly roles.
1. Priesthood Choir or Primary Choir? The primary sung one song. We had a beautiful alto solo by a young woman.
2. Flowers or Cookies? We received a CD from gelison-groberg publishing. Beautiful instrumental selections of hymns with an ever so slight hint of bluegrass. Sister B said she was so glad they didn’t give her another plant to kill.
3. Oh, My Father, or Love at Home? Love at Home was the closing song.
4. Old People or Young People? Youth Speaker, Grandmother, and thirtyish brother.
5. Spiritual Feast or Cringe-Fest? Spiritual Feast. Topics were thoughtfully selected to feed the souls of we women while yet acknowledging it was a special day. Grandma C acknowledged the pain of those who might be feeling stress due to the fact it was mother’s day.
I love my ward and the ever increasing sensitivity and caring the members are showing to one another. I hope we can keep growing in that same way.
#42, #44: my ward gave out the new Gospel Art Book too.
Had no idea chocolate and treats were so common. Pretty interesting poll…
1. Priesthood Choir or Primary Choir? Primary.
2. Flowers or Cookies? Got two gifts (life is weird right now): flowers in one, chocolate in another
3. Oh, My Father, or Love at Home?: I can’t remember…but it wasn’t Oh, My Father
4. Old People or Young People? Both
5. Spiritual Feast or Cringe-Fest?
spiritual feast, absolutely. I was thrilled.
I actually liked it better than I thought I would. There was a 12-year-old that spoke about his mother, who he knows loves her and always does things for him even though “she has to work a lot” (she’s a surgeon). He did a great job.
The couple that spoke are around 30 and have a 1 year old but struggled for a few years from infertility. She spoke on learning patience. I don’t remember his talk, but he said something his grandmother taught him in Spanish. The kids that sit by us are incredibly cute and fun to play with.
Hershey’s chocolate bars. Primary choir (not too bad, compared to the Wymount wards where there aren’t any kids old enough to sing so you just hear their teachers singing). Neither of those two songs, but something else fairly sappy.
Drove from north-of-LA (where I’m currently living in a hotel for 3+ weeks, doing work on a case) down to San Diego on Saturday afternoon. Visited my former wife (and mother of my four kids) on Saturday evening; my oldest daughter and her husband were there as well. Went back to my mom’s house and watched (the TNT-edited versions of) “Kill Bill”, vols. 1 & 2, with my mother (hey, it was her idea; no, really). We both stayed up until 12:45 am finishing the 2nd film; I suggested knocking off and going to bed around midnight, and she said, “I want to see if she actually kills Bill.” (She’s 84, by the way.)
Got up Sunday morning, spent time with my mom discussing family history and genealogy; she has, quite literally, volumes of research. Took her out for a Mother’s Day lunch at my favorite Chinese restaurant (La China, in Tierrasanta). She talked about her plans to visit Africa next year (she went to Greece and the Dalmatian Coast last year). She actually wants to go up the Amazon River, but none of her coterie of traveling companions were willing to do that.
Took her back home and headed up the coast. Stopped at Bellefleur Restaurant in Carlsbad where my former wife was having lunch with her mother (my ex-mother-in-law), as well as my Marine son and another one of my daughters (with her husband and two kids).
Drove back up through LA and to Santa Clarita through very heavy post-Mother’s-day traffic. Spoke to my wife on the phone several times during the day, mostly about my Mothers Day gift to her, which she had received a few days earlier: a pink iPod shuffle with 8.5 hours of carefully chosen and arranged songs representing our courtship, wedding, and 23 years of marriage; think of it as a very long mix tape. (She absolutely loves it, BTW.) She said that Sacrament meeting at our ward was great — all young men and women talking about her mothers (Young People, Spiritual Feast), but didn’t give me details about the other items.
When I got to Santa Clarita, I found that my right foot was swollen, probably due to the shrimp that I unthinkingly ate at La China (I suffer from gout, and I already had a mild attack underway). My foot is still stiff, sore, and somewhat swollen; not much I can do except pop Advil 6 at a time.
But it was a great Mothers Day. ..bruce..
Oops: #66, paragraph 4 should read: “all the young men and women talking about their mothers”.
My ward has essentially no mention of Mother’s Day besides a couple mentions in prayers and one announcement at the beginning of sacrament meeting. The announcement was that there would be a post-block gathering with food for Mother’s Day and all were invited. That was it for Mother’s Day. It was kind of nice, but definitely different than any other ward I’ve been in.
Oh, we did sing “Love at Home”. I really, really hate that hymn. Also, the sunshine hymns make me want to dig my eyes out with a spork. We were at least spared any sunshine hymns.
1. Primary sang a song about families
2. A cookbook put together by the YW and YM AND a tomato plant!
3. We Are All Enlisted and The Time Is Far Spent. Go figure.
4. Middle agers
5. Talks were well done.
1. Primary. 2 songs, and the cutest little redhead Sunbeam in the front row waving at her Mother. Nice!
2. Neither, a booklet of questions about the Mothers answered by the Primary Children. Hilarious!
3. Blissfully, Neither. God Bless the music people.
4. 2 HP’s, 1 from the Bishopric, who admitted trying to push the talk off on his wife, a homeschooling Mother of 6, and failed.
5. It’s always a cringable day for me, being one of those unmarrieds for whom some sort of plant is usually thrust to by a well-meaning Deacon. I usually go to my Mother’s Church, and spend the day with her. She had the stomach flu this year, so I got to be with the Ward.
1. Pretty good Sacrament meeting at my folks’ ward
2. Mother I Love You
3. Decent talks by pregnant woman and her husband
Even if it had been a cringe-fest, it could not have topped the rest of they day, which consisted of several plane and bus rides with a very tired nearly two-year-old. And a pre-existing migraine. I love every person on those vehicles who expressed sympathy, bless ’em.