Thinking it would help solve my transportation issue for church, I volunteered to be the duty driver for today. The first task was driving SFC Tuggy, his wife and 1SG Worley to the airport so they could pick up a rental car and attend a “mega church” service in town. I returned to the hotel just in time to take the day’s bus driver back to the base to pick up the bus. Next stop was the golf course for 3 unit members and a guest. While filling the gas tank I got a call from the golf crew saying the course was booked solid until after 11am, so they wanted to return to the hotel and return at a later time. During our 1-hour “layover” at the hotel I was able to re-research my church options online, so I thought I still had a good shot. After dropping off the golfers I was on my way to the San Antonio 10th Ward Sacrament Meeting. Or so I thought.
The trip took just about as long as I had planned, and I arrived at the chapel just a few minutes after 11:30. It didn’t take long to realize this was one of the “typical” chapels with a U-shaped hallway around the chapel and cultural hall, so I was able to find the back chapel doors and step inside. However, instead of just having started the 10th Ward Sacrament Meeting, I listened to the ward’s young women give very brief updates (in Spanish) about girls’ camp, followed by their camp director. It sounded like a great camp experience and the stories were fun. But not only was I too late for the Sacrament, but they were also at the very END of the meeting. We sang the closing hymn, “Haz El Bien” (Choose the Right) and they split up for Sunday School.
Being a rather pale person I was easy to pick out, and it didn’t take too long for the missionaries to introduce themselves. When I mentioned I had used the ward website I got a big {sigh} and an explanation that they had been trying to get that updated for months. I had actually attended the Spanish-speaking Las Palmas ward, but there would be an English-speaking YSA Sacrament Meeting about an hour later. No problem – I followed the small stream of people headed to class.
I found myself seated in the Spanish-taught Gospel Principles classroom. When we got started there were about four members, but that grew as the hour went on. When the teacher said we were going to start with a hymn and looked like she was just going to lead off a capella, I offered to play the piano instead. She seemed to think that would be good, but tried to apologize because she had never led music with piano accompaniment before.
The class was about Personal Responsibility and the importance of work. I did quite well so long as I kept my mouth shut … understanding the conversations, following along in the manual, everything went well until I tried to give a comment. I managed to mess up the name “Sunday” by talking about how we try not to work on “Sabado” (Saturday), but the teacher was very nice and didn’t point out that glaring mistake. I think I made up for the blunder by accompanying the closing song for her. :+)
The YSA Branch Sacrament Meeting was VERY quiet, and I had a bit of trouble staying awake. I really could have used that rest hymn part-way through to help wake me up (why is it called a “rest hymn” again?), but it seems that the second talk (most of which I missed, since it didn’t seem all that long to me) left only about 8 minutes for the final two speakers. So I managed to attend about 2.5 meetings before getting back on the road.
Sometimes I manage to annoy Rory with my desire to take different roads and routes, even when I’m going to the same destination. Instead of going back to the hotel the way I had traveled to the chapel, I ended up on the “scenic route.” This was one of those times when I just let myself go wherever for awhile, then armed with a map I would make my way back along a different road. San Antonio is “ringed” with several roads at varying distances from downtown, and I really only needed to use the inner-most ring to get back. However, I found that I was headed out on a “spoke” towards the second ring, so I figured I’d take the loop and see what was out there.
Unfortunately, when I was just about as far away from the golf course as I could be on that 2nd tier ring, I got the phone call from the Commander’s golf group that they would be ready to be picked up in about 15 minutes. So it was back up I-35 / I-10 to FSH, through base and to the course. I wasn’t keeping track, but they said they weren’t waiting for me for TOO long. Quick trip up to the airport to drop off their guest, then back to the hotel.
I had about an hour before I got the call I suspected would be coming. About half of the band rode the bus to a water park about 45 minutes away (www.shlitterbahn.com), and I knew they were all going to meet at 5:00 to decide whether to come home at that time or stay until the park closes at 8:00. Most decided they wanted to stay, but some really weren’t interested so I was asked to come pick them up. Good thing I don’t mind driving, and it’s also a good thing only six wanted to return early since that’s all the room available in the van.
So I guess I got some “rest” if not rehearsing meets that definition. There won’t be too much rest tonight, since I have to be on the road at 0530 for a brass quintet job on post.
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