Evil Speaking to the Lord's Anointed

Well I've done it again. I think I just inadvertantly told an Apostle of the Lord to his face that his talk was boring. . Ok, that's not entirely truthful- this is only the first time I've done it, but I said it so offhandedly that you'd think I had practice.

Our stake is having stake conference this weekend and we are getting a new stake presidency. As we all know it is usually the Seventy who do most of the work of reorganizing stakes, but our stake must be especially righteous, or especially sinful, because Elder Richard G. Scott himself of the Quorum of the Twelve showed up to do it. We had a nice priesthood session this afternoon where he had a question and answer session- something you don't always get with one of the twelve. I didn't have anything especially interesting to ask him, so I just listened to all the other questions and their Apostolic answers.

We returned tonight for the "adult" session, where we had- not talks about adult themes (thank goodness, that would have been a little awkward with an apostle sitting there), but a session free of children. Compared to some deacons I know, Lucy quite qualifies as an adult, so she sat on my lap up in the choir seats behind where the speakers and presiding authorities sit. The choir sang a little diddy by Janice Kapp Perry (expect rant on this later), and then we listened to the speakers for almost two hours. Lucy did quite well, though by the end (it was almost 9:00) she was getting a little tired. Luckily it was Elder Scott speaking at the end, and he can speak in such a nice, soft melodic voice that she fell right asleep. I really enjoyed his talk. There aren't many people who can hold my attention after a 1.5 hour church meeting, but he is definitely one of them.


As we filed out to leave, there was a big line (queue, for those of you in England) of people hoping to shake hands with Elder Scott and this blocked our exit from the choir seats. As we got in the line to leave, which doubled as the line to shake hands, we got closer and closer to Elder Scott, when finally I was standing there, Lucy asleep in my arms, and he grabbed my hand and said something about what a good baby to sit so quiet through a long meeting. Thinking I was thanking him and complementing him on his wonderful voice I said "Well I owe you a big thank-you! You helped me put her to sleep."

Now, what I meant to say was, "You have such a wonderful speaking voice that you helped me put her to sleep", but feeling the pressure of the massive line behind me, I felt obliged to shorten my remarks to him, which unfortunately dropped a little of the meaning of what I meant to say. So I effectively told him "Your talk was so boring it put my baby to sleep". Oops.

Lucky for me the choir sings again tomorrow morning. I think for my everlasting soul's sake I better lean over to him and give him a little context to my rushed comment.