Keeping the Sabbath Day holy is a commandment with a promise. The Doctrine and Covenants reads, “But remember that on this, the Lord’s day, thou shalt offer thine oblations and thy sacraments unto the Most High, confessing thy sins unto thy brethren, and before the Lord. … Verily I say, that inasmuch as ye do this, the fulness of the earth is yours, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and that which climbeth upon the trees and walketh upon the earth.”(Doctrine and Covenants 59:12, 16)
But exactly how individuals and families observe the Sabbath can vary widely. Even the way we observe the Sabbath today is vastly different from the way many people observed it decades ago.
Even future leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made a decision to skip out on a meeting — sometimes with dangerous (or funny) consequences. Here are three moments when Church leaders missed their Sunday meetings. (Warning: It didn’t end well.)