The Day the Music Died

Today something kind of funny happened. Let me give a little background of a Sun Valley Ward sacrament meeting to start out. When we first moved here, we noticed something a little different about the way our wards sacrament meetings ran. Most things were the same, we would start with a welcome and then an opening hymn, a prayer and some announcements. We would then sing a sacrament hymn and then the difference... When the congregation sang the last sacred note of the hymn, the organ would not stop. The organist would play an extra instrumental verse after the words ran out. This was true whether the men were done preparing the sacrament or not. It took us awhile to get used to. All our lives, we had been prepared to fold our arms after we were done singing in reverence for the impending sacramental prayer. But eventually we adapted and learned to enjoy that extra time to focus our minds. That was however until today...
Our little family was on a bench with Kevin, of course, and a fabulous couple, Jess and Jed. We are all pretty good friends and share a bench nearly every week, so nothing was out of the ordinary, but none of us were prepared for this! After we sang the last note of the sixth verse of the hymn, we all closed our hymnals as reverently as possible and Spencer and I did a little last minute prep to try to help the kids be reverent. Then, we sat to listen to the solitary strains of the organ playing, "Father in Heaven, We do Believe." Suddenly, out of nowhere came a voice. It was Brother Sharp. He was beginning the sacramental prayer on the bread! But, the organ was still playing! What was going on? Where they trying something new? Where they going for the poetry reading feel? Mood music? I was confused, and apparently so was our organist. It took him about two stanza, but then the music just abruptly stopped and Brother Sharp finished the prayer. OK, that was weird. So, all of us had a smile on our face as we tried to hold back the laughter at being surprised by something out of the ordinary. Some snickers were heard, and that was the end of us being a good example. I am embarrassed to say that all of the adults on our bench were about to die by trying to be as reverent as we could while breaking down into uncontrollable laughter. The kids were just fine. In fact, Braden still had his arms folded. Tears were pouring out of my eyes, Jed and Kevin were ducking their heads below bench level and covering their mouths, Spencer just chuckled and was able to remain calm, and Jess was just smiling from ear to ear. I got in control a short while later and focused on the sacrament. Then, to my dismay, I turned my head to see Kevin still trying to compose himself, his head ducked down, and his whole body shaking up and down with laughter. Jed, who was right next to him was not doing much better. That got me giggling again. Finally, I just decided to stop laughing. I put all of my attention on the speaker and re-thought each word that came out of her mouth. That finally put the giggling under control, and I was able to learn a lot about self-reliance and preparation.
There were many speculations made about why this happened. Perhaps Brother Sharp had never liked the organ and had finally snapped. Maybe he was just in a hurry. He tells us he simply wasn't paying attention. Whatever the motive, we on bench two on the left side won't soon forget the day the music died.