Why we never went to church on vacation

To be fair, growing up we never went to church on vacation. In fact, stake and general conferences were treated as vacation days. I didn't even know there were Saturday night sessions of stake conference until I was on my mission.

So the habits were not really there, but it was also rarely an issue. The most common vacations my sisters and I take are ones where we leave on Monday and get back on Friday night. I did look up meeting information for when we were in Hawaii, but it didn't work out.

In this case, we were going to be gone on five Sundays, and that was a lot of Sunday to miss. Not only would missing that much church not feel right, but I thought it would be really cool to meet members in other places. Maybe they would suggest places we had not thought of going, or take us home to use their internet, or become pen pals. It was worth trying.

I had to eliminate two of the Sundays right off of the bat. On our third Sunday we would be with the tour group on Kangaroo Island, traveling with them. One the first Sunday we could have had some free time, but there was no branch in Port Douglas. The closest unit was in Cairns, over an hour away by car, which we did not have. (We had already booked all of our air and ground transportation while I was looking.) Still, that left us with three Sundays, and I had the addresses of the meeting houses and the meeting times.

Our first chance was in Sydney, on the second Sunday of our trip. I had printed directions, and it was supposed to only be a few blocks away. We got up, got dressed, and started off. We had an address, and a building name. It looks like the local branch did not have their own building, so they used a room in a public building. No problem, except that the building did not seem to be at the spot we expected.

What was there appeared to be a police station, but hey, at least there were lots of officers we could ask. We did, and he was not positive, but he thought it would be two blocks in the direction he pointed out. Now, it was a very warm day, and the part of Sydney we were in was quite hilly, but okay, we at least had to try. We trudged on in our uncomfortable Sunday shoes, and found the street, and there was nothing there either. There was a race of some kind, though, so there were lots of runners, and officers controlling the crowds, and we asked again.

Oddly, these directions did not work either, and we had kind of circled back to where we started from. Maybe that means that we had been close the entire time, and all we needed was to have gone at a slightly different angle, or one street over, but we were thoroughly stumped, and now hot, sweaty, and tired, so we gave up. After all, our other two times would be in New Zealand, where there are a lot more members, and people would be more familiar with the church, so this was a fluke, and regrettable, but the other Sundays would be different. Well, they were different anyway.

The fourth Sunday was in Auckland, and it was just stupidity that we missed it, which was a shame because we had already had one stroke of luck. You see, this was the first Sunday in October, so it was General Conference. I was worried that would throw things off, because maybe they would not be on their regular schedule, watching the broadcasts. Still, with the time difference, maybe they would tape the broadcasts to play the following week. However, we were lucky because their normal meeting time was 9 am, and that would coincide with the Saturday morning session of conference, so we could not lose either way.

Ha! Well, this one was entirely our own fault. Again, with the time change, and also with being out of our normal routine, sleeping in strange places, we had automatically been waking up at 4 or 5 every morning. Since we would not have to be up until 7, we did not bother setting the alarm, which felt like kind of a luxury. Well, maybe it was that we had been traveling enough to adjust, or the beating that we took in the boat at the Bay of Islands, or just the switch from Australian time to New Zealand time. Somehow, we slept until 8:30.

Okay, we felt bad, but on the next Sunday we actually had a ride to church, because our tour guide had arranged it, so this time we were going to make it for sure. There were just two problems. One was that if we had gone in Auckland, we would have seen that they were on the normal schedule that week, and maybe we could have asked how conference generally worked so we would have an idea of what was different. Having missed that, we were uninformed, and since the people who were helping us get to church were not members (it was actually the motel owner who drove us), they could not advise.

The Dunedin Mornington branch meets at 9. We got up, got dressed, and somehow I knew that I must not wear my church shoes. The Sunday hike in Sydney had shown me that. My sisters disagreed with my decision to wear sneakers with my skirt, but I stood firm. This turned out to be handy.

Our landlady drove us up, and since it was basically a straight shot to the motel, we assured her we could walk back. The parking lot was empty, but it was not quite 9 yet. We should have worried more, but she let us out and drove off. We went to the door and noticed a paper with the conference rebroadcast schedule.

I really do not understand why, when one branch meets at 9 and the other meets at 12:30, the first conference session would be aired at 2. Tell me the sense in that. But that's what it said.

Well, there was no way we were going to stand in a parking lot for five hours, so we started down the hill, making the long march back and feeling pretty stupid. I was glad to be wearing sneakers though, I'll tell you that.

As we started our walk, Maria said, "That's it. We are never going to church on vacation again!" I told her that wasn't the answer. I think the real solution is that you always need to call first. Find a number for the branch president and confirm the meeting times. Ask him for directions. Maybe even see if someone can give you a ride. I can assure you that have the building address and meeting time only seems like enough.