Well, around this area it is always a stuggle to find sports programs and any extracircular progrom that doesn't involve sunday in one way or another. We have struggled in the past with soccer games on sunday and just choose not to play on sunday and it wasn't even hard to say "no". This season has been different...Quinn is the starting quarterback on his football team and has 2 sunday games scheduled. I called his coach and told him that we were Mormon and that we observed the sabbath day and that Quinn would not be participating in the Sunday games. Needless to say he was very upset and this lead to him shouting at both Peter and the Football commissioner in front of the team the next day. Peter calmly told him of some of the great "mormon" football players and reassured him that Quinn would still be committed to the team. He immediatley looked for another quarterback and began to practice Quinn unfairly hard and began to use the Lord's name in vain repeatdley and loudlly at him. He said that he would not play him as QB the next SAT. game. When we got home Quinn was very dissapointed and we as parents felt like he was disgriminating against us. After the kids were in bed, Peter and I continued to talk about it when the phone rang and it was Coach Scott. He apologized for his behavoir and said that he respected our choice to put our religion first. Quinn played GREAT at the saturday game was able to QB.
The missionaries just happened to stop by our house a few days ago and Quinn shared this experience with them. Elder Lee opened up his scriptures and read to Quinn the following passage:
(And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? If ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled; But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you...For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing. peter 3:14-17)
So, the sunday game is coming up this sunday and we have prepared to opt. not to play but still attend practices until this morning when I recieved an email from the football board...
Dear Carrie,
LFFL will be sending out an email later today (I hope!), but I wanted you to know that the games originally scheduled for this Sunday have been moved to Saturday, same time.
I understand that your family does not play sports on Sundays for religious reasons, and I hope that this schedule change will help. (The parent league does indeed try to avoid scheduling games on Sundays, but it is hard to find enough field time on other days because of the very high demand.)
Did we ever talk about the planned LFFL fund raiser? I want to give you a chance to opt out if you have religious objections, so please do let me know. The club is planning to sell subscriptions for delivery of coffee beans by mail. Decaffeinated coffee is one choice, but I understand that decaf is also unacceptable for some folks.
Sincerely,
Amy
Wow! Needless to say, Quinn was so happy and we continue applying our faith that when faced with hard choices the Lord will ALWAYS be on our side.
