going to church in style

this post relates to sunday, august 10.

some people take vacations to get away from everything... including church. not the coopers. we are a churchgoing people and it would take a lot more than a 20 minute ride in the imperial palace (ip) hotel and casino shuttle bus to keep us from our worship. there is nothing quite like showing up for church, nicely dressed, white shirts, ties, hair combed and parted, pig tails, dresses, shiny smiles, squeaky clean dispositions, and scriptures in hand as we disembark via the stairs of the ip bus vibrantly decorated with dollar bills, ads for gambling, and the word casino plastered throughout, parked right smack in front of the entrance for the church just as the other members are arriving.

it’s times like these when i am thankful for the invention of blogging. these are the kinds of accounts the cooper five blog was made for. i think there were four missionaries in the ward we went to. all four of them had to come up to see who had the audacity to arrive in such, shall we say, “style.” there is something paradoxical about arriving to church in a casino’s shuttle bus... not quite as paradoxical as having a huge plasma screen tv when they first came out with a set of rabbit ears on top (dad), but paradoxical nonetheless.

still, we entered the lord’s house and left our casino tarnished image at the door. we had a good experience in the ocean springs ward, heard an excellent talk about testimonies, a great sunday school lesson on alma the younger, met some neat people and then headed back to the hotel in time for the lunch buffet where we were we enjoyed the background jingle of coins hitting the slot machine trays and atari-esque electronic sounds all about.

it was a special sunday.

in all seriousness, we did have a pretty cool day at church as aim ran into a fellow provoite who remembered her from high school. he was a year younger than aimee, so she did not know him, but he said that he remembered her because she was nice to him when other kids weren’t. made me feel bad about all the kids i could have been nicer to growing up.