Next time you speak in church...

I gave a talk in sacrament meeting a couple of weeks ago. I was asked to speak on "the worth of souls" (I am a ward missionary) and was not given a time limit. There was only one other speaker so I figured I had a good 20 minutes. I wrote the whole thing out and figured it was probably about 20 minutes worth of material.

I was the first to speak. I don't remember what time I started so even though I was watching the clock it wasn't doing a whole lot of good since I really didn't know exactly when to finish. Well I got wrapped up in the moment and time really flew by. I was almost finished when some old guy in the congregation looked at me and tapped his watch quite forcefully with an annoyed look on his face. I looked at the clock and wondered where all the time went. (That seems to be a theme in my life.) I hurried and finished and sat down. I was embarrassed because I knew I had taken way too much time. The other speaker was an RM giving his homecoming speech and he had lots of family in town. So I felt even worse.

When I heard the counselor in the Bishopric say they were going to skip the intermediate hymn and move on to the last speaker I sunk my head in shame. We ended up getting out 10 minutes late!!! Afterward I apologized to the Bishopric and the Stake President who happened to be there. They were nice and told me not to worry about it. One of the counselors in the Bishopric who was sitting closest to the pulpit asked me if I felt him tapping on my shoe. I didn't feel a thing. He was tapping on my shoe to get me to stop talking! I was pretty dang embarrassed. You can put me in the same category as the 95+ year olds who are senile and who have lost all awareness of time years ago. HELLO!

Next time I give a talk in sacrament I am not asking for a time limit but a deadline.