(Don't Start With Joke)

Ever notice nearly EVERY sacrament meeting talk starts with either a lame joke or the person takes a good 2-3 minutes "joking" about how they didn't want to talk but now they're there so "bear with me." Let me tell you something, after hearing an intro like that I am definitely not ready to "bear with you" through 15 more minutes of ramble.

Before I get going on this topic I want to note that there are good speakers out there who prepare, share actual thoughts and feelings, etc. and make sacrament meeting spiritual. End of note.

Seriously, it seems like every talk starts like this and it's getting annoying. I certainly don't expect to hear General Conference level addresses from every speaker, just an honest effort and a willingness to speak. If you said you'd speak, just speak! Don't try to formulate the ultimate-combo "not only did i not want to speak, but i'm going to try to make a joke out of how i didn't want to speak" joke. I look over at Rachel whenever someone starts their talk with either of these options. She always glares back at me for being sinfully judgmental. Needless to say I receive multiple glares each Sunday. I'm sure the sin does indeed fall on me and for that I will have to repent, only problem is I have to feel bad about my anger before I can "repent" and if I have to keep enduring these openings to talks over and over my anger will never cease!

So obviously today at church the speaker started in this manner and I made a "note to self" to write about it. Inserting a cleverly placed joke into the middle of a speech can wake up the crowd and really add to a talk. The key is to not put the crowd to sleep right at the beginning with the lame joke. Now, it's difficult to know how a joke is going to fly in any situation so you can think you have a great joke that drops dead or you might have what isn't even a joke turn into an uproar. All I'm trying to say as far as jokes is PLEASE don't put it at the beginning of the talk, it's pretty much guaranteed that it's not going to fly.

On to not wanting to talk. We all know you didn't want to talk but you didn't want to say no either when the bishop calls. I find this interesting that the whole point of the church is to serve willingly, yet I hear all the time about people rejecting callings, etc. And in the case of speaking, I hear publicly that they didn't want to talk. Weird. Oh well, I know I'm cursing myself to speak soon by writing this post. Look out for my opening joke :)