Yesterday at church, I was chatting with the Elder's Quorum President (turns out he's preparing for the New York City Marathon) when he was called away. It was only a few minutes before Sacrament Meeting was scheduled to start, so I just sat where I was and read the bulletin. A few minutes later, he came back and asked if I wouldn't mind helping to bless the sacrament. I said that I, in fact, did not mind and I followed him to the sacrament table.
(As a quick aside, my ward has a lot of recent converts, and many of them are either single or are young families. As a result, we have a very small youth program, including Aaronic Priesthood. I had noticed that adults blessed the sacrament every Sunday, but this was the first time I was asked to participate.)
I was asked to bless the water. When I was younger and regularly blessing the sacrament, either as a priest or as a counselor in the Elder's Quorum Presidency in the Young Single Adult Ward, a leader brought up that too often, those blessing the sacrament were rushing through the prayer and not allowing people to appreciate the words being spoken. So ever since then, whenever I'm asked to bless the sacrament, I slow things down and give longer pauses between phrases. I don't know if anyone got something more out of the way I said the prayer, but it at least helped me from making any mistakes.
While I was not expecting to be asked to bless the sacrament, I was happy for the opportunity and grateful that I was worthy to jump in, despite being unprepared.
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