Following the shocking Coronavirus related announcement that all church meetings would be temporarily canceled, fourteen year old Shalini Pratti of the Saidpet Branch, Chennai India District finds strength in the home sacrament meetings and the inspired home centered gospel learning. “I feel the same spirit as in the chapel,” she said.
On March 12, 2020 the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced, “Beginning immediately, all public gatherings of Church members are being temporarily suspended worldwide until further notice…”
The Pratti family of Chennai, India wondered how it would affect their weekly worship and sacrament. After receiving permission to do the sacrament in their home they began with a plan. The threesome all took part in the Sunday program including: opening and closing prayers, songs, talks, etc. Shalani’s mother wrote the detailed agenda in her journal.
Shalini said, “We had prayers, we sang hymns and felt the wonderful spirit.” She continued, “I did miss seeing my friends and President Paul (Saidapet Branch President) conducting the meeting. Shalini said there were six in her young women group and nearly a hundred Branch members that attended weekly.
Even though they miss the members, Brother Pratti recalled the scripture as they planned together, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, … where two or three are gathered together in my name, … behold, there will I be in the midst of them—even so am I in the midst of you”1
Following the sacrament, the Shalini family holds their usual Sunday school studies based on the “Come Follow Me” that was announced in July 2018. The Pratti family all agree that President Russel M. Nelson is an inspired, true Prophet, knowing that this gospel centered home learning program would be so needed at this particular time of world crisis.
Notes
1 Doctrine and Covenants 6:32. See also Matthew 18:20.
