Perfectly Pious

Every time Sister H gets up to the pulpit everyone holds their breath.  There is an audible breath drawn in almost collectively.  Mothers blush as their children make noise or argue and fathers holding smart phones pretending to "look up bios of the prophets" squirm in their seats.  The message is always the same: money is evil, people in the ward have money, therefore, the ward is evil.  She gets up humbly flaunting her very modest choices in clothing: always the same style earth-toned pioneer skirt and a peasant top or button-up shirt in some sort of a neutral print.  She never wears a heel or jewelry, because that goes beyond the Law of Consecration.  That breaks the mold of the perfectly pious.

She'll start with some sort of scripture like Matthew's "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God" and segway into how most of the people in our ward have "stuff" (said in a condescending tone of course) like boats and trailers and ATVs that will do nothing for our salvation.  Instead, her children wear second-hand clothing and cultivate necessary talents like becoming a scriptorian.  A talent I actually do want to cultivate... on my own. They don't seek worldly talents like sports or dance like the vain do.  It's not all condescending, she will encourage us to live the Mormon Mold, seek to live the Law of Consecration and devote our lives to God through service.

Which is not to be marred by the recent arrival of Brother F, an endodontist who spent the last 6 weeks in South America on a medical mission giving complimentary dental work to people about to lose their teeth. When asked about his trip he would modestly and humbly disclose that he provided his own supplies and fare for the trip.  Nor is it to be marred by Sister K and Sister J who provide a weekend's worth of  meals to over 100 kids in Mesa each weekend whose teachers know they only eat at school.

Maybe definitions of pride, wealth and service are different for each person, but Sister H has helped me on the way to scriptorianhood.  Maybe she encouraged members of the ward to let go of worldly things or maybe she encouraged them to serve instead.