Brothers and sisters –
I’m sending this email a day early because I have an exciting update for our ward and wanted to give you time to plan accordingly.
As you know, we’re able to have up to 150 people worshipping together in person on Sundays. After evaluating attendance with half of the ward coming each week, the ward council feels like we’re able to expand the number of people invited to attend in person each Sunday. We will now open in-person sacrament attendance to two-thirds of the ward at a time, starting Sunday, March 7.
We are going back to the alphabetical groups we’ve used in the past when we’ve needed to divide into thirds (A through G in Group 1, H through P in Group 2, Q through Z in Group 3). However, instead of groups attending in person only once every three weeks, we will instead invite groups to stay home and watch sacrament online once every three weeks, doubling the in-person worship for each group.
We hope the attendance expansion will do a few things, including:
- Allowing more people to worship in person on Sundays.
- Giving each group the chance to worship with the other two groups, expanding fellowship.
- Rotating groups to enable different people to participate in fast and testimony meeting.
Second-hour classes will remain unchanged from what we’ve been doing.
For your convenience, I’ve attached an outline that shows which groups attend in person each week (through the end of June).
We will continue to utilize the same safety precautions and considerations as in the past. We also plan on having the gym overflow open to allow for empty benches between groups and custom seating arrangements, as desired. Those meeting in person are encouraged to wear masks, apply hand sanitizer and practice physical distancing. As always, those not comfortable attending in person are encouraged to watch online.
This week, we invite Group 3 (Q through Z) to watch sacrament online. The other two groups are scheduled to meet in person. The link for sacrament meeting is below:
http://mywebcast.churchofjesuschrist.org/Events/spanishforkutahriverstake
Those watching online are authorized to administer the sacrament in their homes. As always, the sacrament should be administered by worthy priesthood holders of the appropriate office. Please reach out to a member of the elders quorum presidency, Relief Society presidency or bishopric with questions or concerns.
I’m excited to see more of you in the church building and giving more members the chance to attend in person each Sunday. Please let me know if you have any questions or needed clarifications.
Bishop Bennett
Upcoming Events:
Youth Music Festival
Mar. 17, 6 p.m.
This festival for youth and their parents, can be found at the “Strive to Be” Channel on YouTube or the church’s website.