we love attending church on vacation. heck, when we don’t have a sunday calling, sometimes we visit other wards just because it’s fun for us.

but i get what you mean about needing a break. four kids five and under, especially with a husband who works on sundays, leaves me wishing we could take a break once in a while. or at least bump to a later sacrament meeting!

My uncle always attends church no matter where he is. I do not know how he does it, but without fail he has always done so.
If the problem is simply getting children ready, and wrestling them throughout the meeting, then I can see where you are coming from. Take a break! Sometimes it is needed. But as hard as it is, I always feel somewhat accomplished after tackling a tough task like that.
If the problem is personal lack of desire here is an answer:
You might need more examples in your life. It is all about discipline and I cannot imagine it is easy for anyone. Church is a bummer most the time…no really, it is rough. Lessons are a bore, talks never extend beyond more than regurgitation, and priesthood spends 30 minutes on useless jabber. Do I go still? Yes. Do I take notes during all three hours, listening to what I could work on personally? Yes. Does it still suck? Yes.
The only completely effective tool I have found for the problem of personal boredom is: bring someone to church. Through the eyes of another, church takes on an entirely different meaning to me! It is unbelievable. But if the kids are just being difficult, yea sure, no reason to feel guilty for skipping out once in a blue moon. I have a lot of respect for those that can do it though.

I like the idea of Church on vacation (and have enjoyed it in the past), but I haven’t vacationed in a while and wonder what I’ll do next time. The difference is my kids. I think I will always do Sacrament, but I wonder about staying through the other two meetings. It is no sweat for me, but it can be stressful on kids to go to a Primary (especially a big one) where they don’t know anyone, AND the strain on the Primary workers (especially in small Primaries). If a Primary teacher who regularly has 3 kids suddenly has 7, whose parents are “taking a break” in Sunday School, it can be hard. What if they brought something special for their kids that week and didn’t bring extras? What if one or two of the visiting kids is reluctant to be there or a downright stinker? Then these kids become a huge distraction to that unit.

Every July, we lose about half our ward (or at least it feels like it) to participation in the HC Pageant. So while our ward goes to a skeletal program, we have an influx of travelers who come to watch Pageant–it becomes a huge imposition on our programs. While the adult classes overflow with vacationing adults, our poor Primary workers are working overtime. It starts to look a lot like babysitting.

For family reunions, my dad would get permission to bless and pass the sacrament, so we’d have our own meetings. Very sweet memories.

A good portion of our holidays are visiting family, so we go to Church with them. (Although, attending a ward in the SLC Avenues can be dicey some common holiday weeks, as the visitors outnumber the natives in EQ.)

A lot of Sundays find us driving back to North Texas from wherever we were, to be back at work on Monday morning. We’ll do our own Church in the car on those Sundays.

When I’m traveling on business over a Sunday (I hate business travel, and even moreso on a Sunday), I look for a ward to attend for sacrament meeting only. Makes the travel a little better.

We used to make an exception for “visiting family on Sundays” if they didn’t have a functioning nursery, when we had nursery-age children. In those cases, we might only go to sacrament meeting. I know some Avenues wards that never bothered calling nursery leaders, since they didn’t have any of those children. Visitors were shown the nursery, but you were on your own…

makakona (#1),

If you feel like you need a break from Church, is that because Church is a drain, or is that the influence of Satan? :)

It seems to me that if taking a break would make you feel better about Church then wouldn’t it be a good thing to do on occasion?

Michelle Glauser (#2),

I am glad that you enjoy Church while on vacation. I used to as well. Recently attending meetings isn’t as much of a “break” as it used to be. I should probably clarify that I didn’t mean this post as a critique of those that attend every Sunday no matter their location. I think that it admirable.

Brigham T.,

I think your comment is very interesting, though I was on the verge of writing it off after you speculate that I need more examples in my life. :)

I’ll reiterate what I said above to makakona: If Church is a bummer does that mean there is something wrong with me, something wrong with the 3 hour block, or something wrong with those that make is a bummer?

Personally, the problem isn’t just boredom, but that Church really isn’t made for little people. Especially toddlers that aren’t yet old enough for nursery. I don’t see how subjecting myself and my toddler to that is efficacious.

I do like your idea of bringing a visitor, but I’m not very likely to find someone on vacation to take to a ward that is not my own.

Margaret Young (#7),

Our family reunions usually involve going to Church, so our religious holidays aren’t a hard fast rule. Maybe we need reunions in more isolated places so we can pull that off.

queuno (#8),

Yours is the only comment that has made me consider that I may need to repent.

Don’t forget by visiting a ward, you’re helping boost their average attendance, and ward budget allocation.

I think the ward budgets are allocated on a quarterly basis. Does anyone know the dollars per head count that a ward gets? I seem to remember it’s something like $10 (per quarter) times average sacrament mtg attendance.

Given 12 sacrament meetings per quarter. (52 per year minus 2 general conferences minus 2 stake conferences) that’s about 83 cents per meeting for each person in attendance.

Is that right?

We usually skip church. With 5 children, it’s just too much of an effort to pack Sunday clothes, make sure that the kids don’t wear them before Sunday so that they stay clean, and then get them all ready for church. When we had fewer children, we typically went. Since I’m the ward secretary, I still do agendas, appointments, and schedules even when I’m out of town. But a day off of church is a 7-hour time savings for me not including the time it takes to get the kids ready — 6 hours of meetings and 30 minutes each way to church. It’s even worse for members of the bishopric, who have to stay later to do interviews and tithing counts and such. I’ll bet members of a bishopric really enjoy travel. Thankfully, I’m just not bishopric material. Seriously, Elder Richard K. Klein, an Area Authoriity Seventy, told me that guys like me shouldn’t even go on missions, and I wholeheartedly sustain him. I’m not sure whether that makes it sinful to be a guy like me, or if he’s referring to some constitutional defect outside of my realm of accountability. It’s probably a bit of both. In any case, it seems to preclude any calling requiring the high priesthood, and that suits me just fine.

I’d LOVE to know Elder Klein’s definition of “guys like [DKL].”

Whoo. A lot of this stuff it familiar. My folks rsaeid me Catholic too, but unlike some, they made sure to not foist any one part of the faith upon me. In fact, they told me right before I was confirmed that I should go out and research other religions, stretch my spiritual legs, get an idea for what is out there. It took me a couple of years, but by and by I found myself graduating towards Catholicism. Turns out, I like a lot of the ceremony and pomp, but that’s just me. An important part of that, though, is being aware of my own whys. Eenyway over the years I ended up dating a profusion of ladies of varying credos, and it wasn’t until I met a very nice warm and fuzzy non-denominational girl that I knew I’d found my match. My wife Genevieve and I don’t share the same background; in fact, there have been time when her friends and family have acted in a less-than-christian fashion towards me and my faith. But you know what? I don’t give a crap. Gen and I understand that fundamentally we both believe in the same thing: the all-encompassing love of out maker for his children. And as far as differences in worship who cares? Do you really think that the creator of the universe gives one fig for what kind of robes a priest wears, or whether he is or isn’t allowed to marry? Nah. Splittin’ hairs, that’s all. As far as the whole baptism thing goes, we baptized my son, something non-denom’s don’t typically do, but only after we came to an understanding as to what the whole process meant. Baptism isn’t all about a kid having OG sin; it’s about promising to raise them up as best as you know how, and being a good (and more importantly, moral and Godly) example to them as they grow. It’s ceremony. Do it and make the promise to keep them on the straight and narrow, or don’t. But don’t go into something like that with a heart that isn’t in it. Kids sense that kind of thing, and it sends a pretty bad message. If you do believe in God, pray on it, for real, and decide what is going to be best for your family, and for their faith. Good luck!