Virginia and I have accepted another assignment to serve as fulltime missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Being gone to Hawaii for two years was hard, and several of our children felt abandoned. Though we wanted to serve again, we didn’t want to be as far away as we have been. We especially want to be available for special occasions like holidays and birthdays. The kids are all independent and don’t really need us. There are times when we wish they would need us. But the truth is that they don’t. Still wanting to fill our lives with useful service, we submitted an application for missionary assignments in the Salt Lake City Headquarters Mission downtown. Other than grad school in Madison, Wisconsin during the 1980’s, we’ve never spent much time in a big city.
I work in Fleet Management supporting the GPS devises placed in the young missionaries’ cars, and Virginia works in the Family Search Library scanning books.
Along with our work assignment during the week, we have been asked to attend and support an inner-city ward on Sunday’s. We are assigned to the Salt Lake City Tenth ward. We love our ward, and that is what I most want to write about.
Our congregation meets in an old pioneer chapel on the corner of 800 East and 400 South. When I say “old pioneer chapel” one may conjure in mind’s eye a log structure with wooden benches to sit on. It has been modernized and improved, properly cooled by air-conditioning, and is a very comfortable building. But it was obviously built of another era with beautiful and rich woodworking, stained glass windows, and an authentic 700-pipe organ with forced air bellows in the basement.
The view from the pulpit of the 10th ward looking east to the stain glass window depicting, He stands at the door and knocks.
The sound the organ makes is heavenly. Our closing hymn Sunday was Amazing Grace. Doug, our organist (a concert pianist, currently homeless and living on the street), played that hymn indeed with amazing grace.
Most pipe structures that one sees in church are decorative. The actual pipes are hidden in architecture. This is the front piece of the 700-pipe instrument in the Salt Lake City 10th ward.
We come from a culture that Sunday best dress implies white shirt and tie for the men and usually a dress for the women. Many of our ward members, however, have fallen on harder times. There is no dress code as far as I know to enter the kingdom of heaven and no similar expectation is set for Sunday worship here. It is probably the most relaxed standard I’ve been exposed to in my experience.
Some years back, a member of the 10th ward congregation entered this painting in a world church art exhibition. She titled it, “He, too, hath not where to lay His head”, from Luke 9:58. Artist: Renon Klossner Hulet
On our first Sunday in attendance, the bishop invited us to his office where he shared with us his observations of the people of this congregation. He likened them to the Island of Misfit Toys in the old cartoon of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. He explained that all these members are broken in one way or another. All are aware of the others’ fractures and flaws but work to see beyond the outward hardships and commune with one another as brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ’s church. As I pondered what he said, I realized that there isn’t a member of any congregation of any church denomination on this planet that isn’t broken in one way or another. The ability of these members to openly embrace one another is a model for how we each should behave regardless of outward circumstances.
Architecturally, the building faces to the east, meaning that in the chapel, the pulpit on the west side faces east while the congregation faces west. In the upper balcony to the back is a large stained-glass window depicting our Savior standing at a door and knocking. When we gather in the morning at 10:00 for worship, the sun has risen over the mountains and bathes the neighborhood in warm, bright light. It passes through this magnificent window and illuminates the faces of whoever stands at the pulpit. I was aware of this light the first Sunday we attended, and the thought that struck me is that we all walk by the light of our Savior. But in this instance, it was plainly manifest that the gospel itself is presented in the very light of Jesus Christ. If all the lights in the building were turned off, the light of Christ would still fill that room.
Detail from the stain-glass window, Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
I was reading a passage from Isaiah earlier that day that seemed to reflect exactly what I was feeling in church:The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. Isaiah 9:2 In our dark and lonely passage of mortality, we can find our way by virtue of the light of Christ showing us the way. In worshipping with these humble children of our Father in Heaven, where I have come to minister, they have taught me.