Sacred and Ridiculous Share a Pew

The quest opens in the preparation room, where Charles arrives with nerves he's pretending not to have and offers something unexpectedly wise — that maybe the sacrament works regardless of whether anyone in the room is paying attention, because it belongs to something bigger than the people performing it. Jerome takes the thought with him to the microphone, where he speaks the blessing prayer on autopilot while forcing himself to attend to what's happening inside. The answer is ambiguous: he wants to believe, wants it intensely, but can't close the distance between wanting and actually arriving. He steps back from the table not knowing whether he's participated in something sacred or performed a convincing imitation.

The intermediate hymn brings the Goodwin toddler — a two-year-old comic genius who systematically dismantles both brothers with crossed eyes, earring-tugging, dummy acrobatics, and a devastating raspberry timed to the hymn's most reverent phrase. Jerome and Charles nearly come apart at the seams while Greta silently catalogues their sins for later reckoning. The laughter leaves Jerome lighter than he's felt all morning, and guilty about the lightness.

Then Bishop Hahn's talk turns. The prepared material about Lehi and wilderness faith gives way to something more personal, more charged — his voice cracking, his gaze sweeping the congregation with unusual intensity, a cryptic declaration about standing on the precipice of a new chapter. Jerome notices Noah's pen stop. His father's expression isn't surprise — it's confirmation. Whatever Bishop Hahn is hinting at connects to the fragments Jerome overheard on Wednesday night: temple presidency, timelines, invitations kept close. Charles reads it as ominous. Jerome files it alongside everything else he can't yet decode.