tell me about your mass/church experience

i posted one of these before and loved the responses, so i'd like to do this every once in a while and would be thrilled if you indulged me with your input!

we arrived at mass to serve communion at the 6:00 p.m. - they add this one during the summer time, which is great for my husband who got home from work (since 4:30 a.m.) and rested and watched a bit of live 8...i knelt to pray and was apparently too close to the ladies in the pew ahead of me because all i heard was how she needed new blinds and i couldn't even focus on my "hey God, it's me, penni..." so we shifted down a bit. when i was done having begged forgiveness for my annoyance, i noticed there were no lectors and mass was set to begin. i turned to look for monsignor who apparently was boring holes through my head until i did so because he was already motioning me to "come here..."

i read and fed :)

we had a family of lay missioners from maryknoll come and speak - they were young! like my age!! tim, the man who did the presentation, had a ponytail and was nervous and sweet and genuine and i decided by the end of mass, i was going to really give my life for Christ and go to bolivia and live in the andes mountains in a village where they have no clean drinking water and have to fight for their basic human rights.

man, does that have me written all over it or what?

when i reconnected with my husband after mass, he was like-minded, but thought we should open a restaurant and serve breakfast and lunch, american-style, and not charge for it. his goal was a bit loftier, but i think our hearts were in the right place :)

i went back and met the missioners' children, daniel and mary, and daniel, being the astute first grader that he is, promptly cajoled me into buying bookmarks he and his classmates made for "fifty cents apiece." they had a traditional aymara greeting on them: dios aski uruchurrtam kullaka - "may God give you a good day, sister." that, too, had my name all over it :) i bought ten but only took two - they were raising monies to go on a class trip to the zoo where i believe they only have mountain goats, but that's not the point.

not a short explanation on how my mass experience was, but it was a good one and one that i will remember for quite some time. i may even go to the 9:30 today so i can hear tim's wife, maggie, speak...

what say you?