According to the meetinghouse locater on lds.org, the closest meeting to Crawford Bay was in Riondel, a very small hamlet about twenty minutes further north on the east side of Kootenay Lake. The first meeting was Sacrament Meeting scheduled for 10 a.m.

We arrived about five minutes before the scheduled start time. There were three other cars in the parking lot, all pulled up under the trees behind where I’m standing to take this picture. We went inside and found a small chapel to the left with a fellow at the Kawai piano/organ, two women, and one other brother. A short time later another sister and another brother (unrelated to each other) showed up. That was the entire congregation: eight adults. According to the woman who is the Relief Society President, their normal attendance is eight to ten people, but the Branch President and his wife were out of town. Sacrament meeting ended about 10:50 and Sunday School started at 11 for almost an hour. Because it was the 5th Sunday of the month, Priesthood and Relief Society were combined. So, both Nina and I sat in the same seats for the entire three-hour block.

The members were very friendly and outgoing. The discussion in Sunday School and in Priesthood / Relief Society was lively and everyone participated. After the meeting, Nina gathered everyone together so she could take their picture on the front steps of the building. That picture will make it onto her blog or into her picture album at some time in the future. After the meeting we wandered around the grounds taking pictures of the wildflowers. Nina visited with a couple of the sisters for quite a while after the meeting as well. As best we could determine, there was only one couple there (we made the second couple). The other two brothers and two sisters were there by themselves.

This has to be the smallest Branch I’ve ever attended. I was in some smaller meetings in Vietnam, but those weren’t branches but rather Servicemen Groups. We had a great time and will long remember our visit to the Kootenay Lake Branch in Riondel, British Columbia.

After Church and lunch at our motor home, we boarded the 2:50 p.m. free ferry across Kootenay Lake and took a short drive north on the west side of the lake. We caught the 5:20 p.m. ferry back to the east side and came back to the motor home for dinner and to catch up on Internet things. I’ve downloaded my pictures and have put some more into the picture album. Tomorrow we’ll cross on the ferry once again and do some more sightseeing on that side of the lake including some time in Nelson, BC, probably the largest community in this region at about 10,000 souls.

We learned after arriving here that July 1st is “Canada Day“, somewhat akin to our Fourth of July. That means most businesses and such will be closed on Tuesday. We’re making some adjustments in our plans to accommodate that unexpected holiday.