If you needed any (further) proof that I am an odd duck, you have it in the fact that I always enjoy Fast & Testimony meeting. Not only do I like the classic, approved form of testimony, but I also enjoy the other, deprecated forms that irritate so many people, including Dallin H. Oaks. I enjoy the thank-imony, the travel-imony, the spouse-imony, the health-imony, and even the roommate-imony.

I think I love it so much because it’s a chance to hear people at their most honest and unscripted. The operation of the gospel in people’s lives is endlessly fascinating to me. Call it Latter-day Saints Unplugged. I can see why some people are appalled when this side of the Saints comes into view, but I confess I am fond of them even in their quirks.

Like this story, I recently came across. If you’re like me, you’ll find it good for a great laugh.

It made me think of another story about a testimony a friend of my wife’s recently told us. In journalism, we used to say that there were some kinds of stories that were “too good to check.” This is one of them, since I wasn’t there I can’t vouch for its accuracy, but my wife’s friend claims she was in the audience. I am probably embellishing it for dramatic effect too. You have been warned. This might be the late-night comedy cousin to the faith-promoting rumor: the humor-promoting tale of dubious provenance.

A woman came up to the podium and thanked everyone for the recent support of the ward in her husband’s operation on his scrotum. He had been having trouble with his scrotum for a long time, it had been causing him pain and so they finally had it operated on. The woman thanked the ward for their concern about her husband’s scrotum and the care and love everyone displayed prior to, during, and after the surgery. Though the recovery was painful, the woman was happy to report that her husband’s scrotum was now as good as new.

Well, you could have heard a pin drop after that testimony. (Scrotum-imony?) So everyone heard the husband stomping up to the podium after his wife concluded her testimony. He bore what might be the briefest testimony ever borne in the history of the Church. He leaned into the microphone and enunciated with great irritation, “It was my sternum!”