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On Sunday, July 17, 2011 I was aboard the Celebrity Millennium cruising Alaska's Inland Passage just north of Ketchikan. We were a large family group - 35 people from my wife's family, and we held sacrament meeting in one of the ship's conference rooms. Ours was the only Christian service held on board that day, and we had Baptist, Catholic & Episcopalian couples join us. The ship's concierge provided us with bread, a paper plate, a bottle of red wine, and about 50 small paper cups. We brought up a silver platter & a pitcher of water from one of the staterooms. I presided over and conducted the service, explaining to our friends of other faiths that I was a Latter-day Saint Bishop and the service would be performed in the LDS manner. My wife led us in a hymn and then one of my sisters-in-law gave the invocation. The sacramental bread was broken & blessed by one of my sons & one of my wife's nephews, both Elders, as we had no Priests in our group. I nodded approval when the blessing was pronounced correctly, just as I do at home in the American Fork 29th Ward. The bread was passed by the oldest son of one of my wife's nieces, a Deacon. All of the priesthood brethren looked sharp in suits & ties.
In the LDS Church, we use water rather than wine to represent the Savior's blood which was shed for us. In a typical congregation, we have special sacramental trays that hold not only the small cups of water, but also the used, empty cups. It didn't seem dignified to have people partake of the emblem of the Lord's atonement from a silver platter, then return their used, empty cup to the same platter, so we had one of the Elders follow the Deacon with a paper plate. People took their sacramental cup filled with water from the Deacon's silver platter and then put their empty cup on the Elder's paper plate.
After the sacrament, one of my wife's nephews gave an excellent talk about the beauty of God's creation and our role as stewards. One of my wife's nieces then led us in the wonderful hymn, How Great Thou Art, which we thought would be familiar to everyone present. Fortunately, my wife knew the words to all four verses, since no one had brought a hymnal and this particular song is not included (copyright restrictions) in the electronic LDS library that most older family members carry on their smart phones. I then gave a talk focused on John 16:33 "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" which was followed by a brief testimony from the husband of one of my wife's nieces, then a closing hymn and a benediction given by one of my brothers-in-law. The whole service lasted about 45 minutes, after which we visited with our Catholic & Episcopalian friends. I have no idea what happened to the unopened bottle of wine we left in the conference room, but it was not there when we returned to the same room a day later for family home evening.
The professions of the adults who performed some part of our Sunday service:
- businessman
- engineer (2)
- attorney (2)
- stay-at-home mom (2)
- teacher
- physician
- professor
