Plein Air

Good one! Check out my new response when someone wants to talk about COVID / Riots / Moral Decay - "Sorry, I am not really in the mood to talk about that this year. Let's try again next year."

As the creator of this thread I vote to close it! ✋ I am catching a whiff of dead horse stink.

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I am not talking about authority, I am talking about obedience to a request by church leaders. You seemed to have missed that as well. Honestly, I am not really interested in presenting my case any further to you. No offense. I disagree with you and that is the end of it for me.

Perhaps you missed it that I am talking about Utah, where we were all told by the area presidency to wear masks not only to church but in every public area. And no, it isn't that simple. Sorry.

If it were only that simple.

My choice as to whether I want to attend church, regardless of my risk factor, should not be impacted by those who refuse to wear a mask contrary to the request of priesthood leaders. Despite the directive about high risk people staying home if they choose to, which I believe was inspired, the negative message is still there. Technically everyone is at risk. Let me rephrase them a bit. "My selfish desire to not wear a mask at church is more important than your desire (as a normal risk member) to attend church." or "If you as a normal risk individual want to attend church but are concerned about members like me not wearing masks, stay home!" It is wrong either way.

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What kind of message are we sending to the vulnerable members of our ward by not wearing a mask? Being one of those myself with maybe a 90% chance of dying from C19, the message I get is: "My desire to not wear a mask is more important than your desire to attend Sacrament meeting." or "If you feel the need for everyone to wear masks to church, you should just stay home." If someone has a problem wearing close fitting masks, then they should try something different such as a full face shield. They aren't as effective as an N95 masks, but they do block fluids from launching at high velocity over long distances from a cough or sneeze. Though I do not support mandated mask wearing, I do feel the right thing to do is to always wear a mask at church and in private businesses or other locations where they ask you to. I don't have to go to WalMart to stay alive. I can ask or pay someone to deliver my food. But to deny me the ability to attend Sacrament meeting in a relatively safe environment is very wrong in my view.

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At church today, only 2 adults did not wear masks. An older sister and a visiting 20 something brother. I was pretty surprised by the older sister not masking up. Almost every kid who could walk, wore a mask of some kind. In previous meetings according to reports from other members, at best maybe 10% of the congregation wore a mask as the high number and less than 1% as the low. The deacons did a great job passing the sacrament, leaning over the empty row in front of the member occupied rows to offer the bread and water so nobody else had to touch the tray handles. With the water, they had a second tray without the cup holder top on it so people could drop their used cups into it easily, without having to reach across or possibly touch the unused remaining water cups. I don't know where the plan for the passing method originated, but I was impressed regardless. It was my first time back to church since mid March. It lasted about 40 minutes and included 1/3 of the ward membership, segregated alphabetically into three separate rotating meeting blocks. Three hymns including the sacrament song and one talk. It was one of the most memorable I have been a part of. After the meeting, we were asked to wipe down the wooden bench surfaces with provided sanitizer cloths in the pew where we sat.

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We took a drive to St George Utah today. Compared to about a month ago, I would say that mask wearing had more than doubled at the places we visited on both trips. We went to a large new car dealership that we had not been to for several years and found that not a single person working there was wearing a mask, nor did they ask if we would prefer that they did. We were both wearing masks the entire time we were around any other people.

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Just one glaring problem with masks vs concealed guns, everyone will know you aren't wearing a mask! lol 🤓 Most if not all of the older sisters and many of the older men in our ward won't be attending church until everyone is wearing masks, or they will sit as far away from and behind the non masked members and likely leave early after taking the sacrament. I have no problem with staying home from church until this is over, even if it takes another year or two, letting the younger folks do all the socializing if I don't like the mask situation at church. If I get the virus it is highly unlikely that I will survive. Catching it and dying doesn't worry me at all. I would prefer that there had never been any kind of a shutdown. But my wife has asked me to do everything I can to avoid getting it, so, for her, I will stay home until the odds are close to zero of my contracting C-19. Of course by that time there will probably be some new killer virus, or two or three, out in the wild.

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