i know tim mcgraw is true...

(UPDATED: ok... so since last monday's FHE lesson was based on elder holland's talk about our tongues being "an unruly evil, full of deadly poison" AND someone who attended this meeting found this post -- although, they gave me a hearty "hear hear" -- i felt compelled to make some adjustments to this post and make my words less venomous...)

there is something inherently evil about making fun of people in church. and when i am tempted to, i suddenly find myself with my face cupped in my hands... a combination of trying not to laugh and praying "PLEEEEASE make these thoughts go away!? please please please make me a kinder, more compassionate person who recognizes the good in other people and doesn't find humor in their unfortunate inability to write a talk." but this sunday was father's day. and i LOVE father's day. i love my dad, and i love thinking of fun stories about my dad (i love mother's day equally for clarification... but this post is about father's day)... and generally speaking, i end up teary-eyed in church while someone talks about the blessings of fathers, etc etc. this father's day, i will admit, i still had a few of those moments... but it was slightly overshadowed by the overwhelming feeling i had to gouge my eyes out with a fork hug everyone around me.


now, at the risk of someone somewhere in the future finding this blog and recognizing that i'm talking about them or their daughter or their friend or whatever in the hope that everyone will find this and think i'm a really sweet person and always have nice things to say about people... umm, well... i'm still going to tell you this story.

four girls, returning home for the summer from various colleges, were asked to speak about father's day and talk a little bit about their experience at college (first mistake was allowing 20 year old girls this much flexibility in their speaking assignment... we're lucky we didn't hear about how bobby broke their heart... anyway... what a wonderful idea this was). they were each asked to speak for 8 minutes... i know this because each in turn mentioned that they had been asked to speak for 8 minutes right about the 12 or 13 minute mark and they were really good at trying hard to stay within those 8 minutes.

the first talked about byu and how byu was the best place for her, but not for everyone and how she had been raised to think byu was the only place she could go and how she never thought she would actually go, and spent just a little too much time talking about byu... and a little less time talking about... well, what do most people go to church to talk about again? ;) and i love byu, so it was great! ANYway... here's me typing away... knowing every letter i type is one letter closer to total condemnation bliss.

so... number two gets up. this is where the fork would have been handy for the eye gouging i really wanted to hug people. i'm going to skip the part where she talked about her dad... 'cause honestly, this is where i got a little misty... so i'll give her that much. but, let's go straight to the part where she held up her copy of the "Father of the Bride" DVD and quoted george banks (which she admitted to playing over and over again so she could be sure she got the quote "just right"... which was so thoughtful of her) as he talked about his little girl growing up, it was so sweet. and then let's skip to the part where she read THREE verses of a tim mcgraw song about a father losing his daughter as she grew up (i love tim mcgraw), but like she realized that like the song was like kind of hard to read 'cause like it's totally "country" and like says words like "ain't" and "ya'll" so she like decided at the last minute to like write it out in like normal words so she could totally like read it normal. AND i'm not exaggerating. AND i'm going STRAIGHT to hell for this one... BUT... it was like totally worth it. ;) which was a really good idea, and i appreciated it.

and the third speaker was actually really good and the fourth had to be postponed to next sunday... because when you're 20, apparently it's too difficult to look at the clock and realize you've been speaking for twice as long as you should have you're just so wonderful, and i love you.

and of course, the little primary kids singing "i'm so glad when daddy comes home" made me want to hug each and every one of them and thank them for being such angels. maybe i'll get bonus points for that one in heaven and it will all even itself out.