I stayed over in San Antonio on Saturday night this weekend, which meant I needed to find a nearby chapel to attend. (Which was a very easy thing to do now that the Church has a website specifically for this purpose). One thing I love about the Church is the continuity of design it has infused into the meetinghouses found throughout the world. There are definitely places where congregations meet in office spaces, rented rooms, etc, but when a building is built by the Church for the specific purpose of being a meetinghouse it is instantly recognizable for most members.
When I plugged the address for the meetinghouse into my GPS, it told me it couldn’t find that exact address and suggested a nearby option. I wasn’t worried about finding the right house of worship though, because I knew all I had to do was look for the spire. Our spire is different from almost all other churches because it doesn’t have a cross on top.
As soon as I pulled into the parking lot I looked for the sign that I knew would say “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”. Once I spotted it I hurried and parked because I was running late!
April 21st, 2009 on 12:35 pm
I had the exact same experience this weekend in Harrisonburg. I was looking on the wrong side of the road for the building (because that’s where the GPS said it would be). As I made a u-turn and came back I saw the familiar shape on the other side of the road and felt pretty foolish because it looks exactly like so many other meetinghouses. I wasn’t sure how I managed to drive past it in the first place, but I sure was happy to find it!
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April 21st, 2009 on 2:38 pm
Aren’t GPS devices amazing? We were in Idaho for General Conference weekend and the address the church site gave to us, the GPS couldn’t find (or at least not the right one). But it has a way of finding other meetinghouses (Stake Centers) and we barely made it to the beginning of the Sunday afternoon session. Boy it sure made me happy to see it in amongst everything else.
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