Think Your Church is Noisy? Bet I Can Top That!

Today, we had a change in our Branch Presidency. When they dissolved the District and divided the branches among the three Anchorage Stakes, that presented a problem in our branch. Our Branch Presidency all live in Anchorage (they have to for logistical reasons), but they are responsible for the people in the branch. But our Branch President lived in the wrong stake. So they had to replace him. We now have a new Branch Presidency.

We have our meetings over the phone. Everyone calls into a conference line and inputs a special PIN, and we are all joined on the same line. We are all supposed to mute our phones unless we are making a comment (like during class time) or actually speaking or teaching. But sometimes, people forget to mute or the mute doesn’t go through. Then things can get pretty interesting.

Anyway, today’s Sacrament meeting was largely about the switch. The previous presidency and the new presidency all spoke, and several wives too. We had people speaking from Hawaii (one of the new counselors is on vacation), driving cross country (the other counselor was travelling back up from the lower 48), Anchorage, and across the bush. But they weren’t the only ones contributing. Others participated quite by accident. We had the usual echo and background noises of static and clicking (like the movie Signs), and today we also had running and screaming children, sneezing, static and feedback sound that hurt our eardrums, and a flushing toilet. But the thing that was the most distracting was when someone slid their phone into their shirt pocket, and it picked up their heartbeat so loudly that it drowned out the person speaking. It sounded like Edgar Allen Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart.” That’s when the branch president interrupted the meeting and asked everyone to mute their phones.

So next time you hear a baby fussing or kids whispering, don’t sweat it. At least your meeting isn’t like something out of the Twilight Zone. I’ll take screaming kids or flushing toilets any day. Just don’t give me the BA-BOOM...BA-BOOM...BA-BOOM...