Missionary homecoming spirit vs. emotion
We had a rousing homecoming yesterday... I now can see why the church has asked us to downplay homecoming events. The missionary's path on his mission was unique, he was mostly a service missionary, but spent the last 2 months as a performing missionary at a church historic site. He's a wonderful young man from a wonderful family, but WOW, what a production they did. Rousing piano/organ duets before, after, and during, solo singing by missionary, entire service mission on the stand singing, whole congregation standing during closing hymn (called to serve...I'm a convert so I didn't understand the "tradition"). Just absolute theater. Barely a word about the savior... Big luncheon afterwards. I watched our recent convert and she was loving it. I mentioned it to my wife and she said people were reacting to the emotion, and not the spirit. Made me think about other churches and their productions and how possibly people confuse the two. I guess it might be how people can confuse happiness with joy. Just thinking out loud here -- I'm sure other people in my ward are here on Reddit and know what I am talking about. Interesting day....