Baking Blessings in Prosper

Prosper, Texas. Saturdays are busy in many households. Families schedule practices, rehearsals, games, house cleaning, yard work, and errands into the day; others show up for a work shift or bring something home from the office to complete; and everyone seems to love having a little extra time for hobbies and socializing on the weekend. But there are a few households that add one more item to the Saturday to-do list: baking fragrant loaves of fresh bread that will become part of their congregation’s worship service on Sunday.

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the feature of the Sunday worship service in every congregation across the globe is the sacrament (similar to Communion or the Eucharist). Bread and water are blessed and offered to those in attendance. The bread for the service is always donated by families in the congregation, and typically they simply purchase it at the store with their weekly shopping. But Becky Carter of Prosper, Texas, decided one day four years ago that she wanted to try baking the bread herself.

The seed of this idea was planted about fifteen years prior when Carter’s oldest daughter, then about ten, learned to bake bread at a church activity — the results of which the girls donated to the congregation for that week’s sacrament service. Carter says, “I kept the recipe and just kind of tucked it away. I always thought it would be neat to do that again.” She intended to do a similar bread baking activity a few years later when she was serving with the teenage girls of her congregation in Michigan, but a daughter-in-law’s cancer diagnosis took her to Utah to help care for her son and grandchildren instead.

The idea finally blossomed when Carter moved to Texas with her husband and youngest daughter. Upon meeting the bishop of her new congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ, she asked, “Would you be willing to let me try making the bread weekly for the sacrament?” Delighted, he gave her the go-ahead, and Carter has been blessing her congregation with her baking ever since. 

Additionally, her act of service has inspired two other women in Prosper, Molly Burkinshaw and Sheri Lloyd, to team up to provide homemade bread weekly for their congregation’s sacrament meeting.

Burkinshaw, a three-year resident of Prosper and mother of eight children who range in age from fourteen to three, is accustomed to baking bread often for her busy family. The Covid-19 pandemic and the accompanying supply shortages saw her baking more often than ever before. When members of The Church of Jesus Christ, like other church congregations, were unable to gather for services at the beginning of the pandemic, Church leaders authorized families to perform the sacrament ordinance in their homes. Burkinshaw’s baking skills came in handy then, and she wanted to continue providing the sacrament bread even when public worship services returned. “I sometimes felt like I didn’t have very much [time] to contribute,” says Burkinshaw. “But I know how to make bread.” This was a way she felt she could serve her congregation.

LLoyd, a mother of six whose husband served as Carter’s first bishop in Prosper, also wanted to help in this way. “I always think of Becky and her example,” says Lloyd. “The whole time [I’m baking] I know that I’m making it for our church family too…. it’s just something very sweet and simple that I can do.”

Michael Monson bakes bread with his wife Iris every week for another congregation in Prosper and was similarly inspired by someone in his church family many years ago when they lived in Rhode Island. Monson’s church assignments at the time required his visiting many congregations across Rhode Island and even Connecticut. One Sunday he attended a sacrament meeting that served morsels of someone’s homemade bread, “and it was the most delicious thing I’d ever had,” exclaims Monson.

The weekly sacrament is a time when people can meditate, think about Jesus Christ, and feel close to God. Congregants take the sacrament as a reminder of the sacrifice made by Jesus Christ, which they believe allows all to be forgiven of their sins and live again after they die. (ComeUntoChrist.org) 

As Monson sat through the reverence of the ordinance that day, his thoughts went back to the taste of the bread: “Isn’t that what the Atonement is? The sacrament represents the Savior’s Atonement, and the Atonement should taste good to us. It should be refreshing; it should be something we yearn for and want to have.” 

As the years went by, Monson continued to ponder how small details like the taste of the bread can enhance or even detract from the meaning of the service. These thoughts and the pandemic inspired the Monsons to bake the bread for their congregation as a way to contribute and serve even when they could not attend the meetings themselves.

Carter emphasizes that making the bread every week is a privilege. “It’s a pleasure to help in some way, just to make the sacrament something a little bit different or unique or special for everybody.” Lloyd agrees and adds, “It is just another way to bring the sacrament closer to me.”

Burkinshaw knows that with her many children in tow while her husband sits near the chapel organ to play the hymns, Sunday’s sacrament experience “is probably not going to be super reverent or a time I can focus on things.” So she considers her bread-making time — usually accompanied by a spiritual podcast after the children are in bed on Saturday evening — as a time of renewal, just like the sacrament. “Being able to make the bread has strengthened my testimony of the importance of the ordinance and the covenants that I’ve made.”

Carter feels that her weekly act of service is a way for her to feel the Lord’s love. “I have some tender, spiritual moments sometimes just looking at that loaf. The word sweet is [what] comes to my mind. He is just so sweet and so tender and compassionate, and He understands how hard we try. It’s so sweet to recognize how much He just wants us to make it home.”

Monson puts his bread baking into perspective this way: “We can never do enough to show our appreciation for Jesus Christ and what He’s done for us. It’s such a small thing to make a loaf of bread to demonstrate our desire and our love for the Atonement. And it’s no sacrifice.” He adds quietly, “He is everything. He’s the answer to every problem. He’s the source of all blessings…. Because of the Savior, I have everything in my life.”

We can never do enough to show our appreciation for Jesus Christ and what He’s done for us. It’s such a small thing to make a loaf of bread to demonstrate our desire and love for the Atonement. And it’s no sacrifice. He is everything. He’s the answer to every problem. He’s the source of all blessings.

Michael Monson

There is a well-known children’s song in The Church of Jesus Christ that goes, in part, like this: “Saturday is a special day, / It’s the day we get ready for Sunday.” It seems that Carter, Burkinshaw, Lloyd, and the Monsons have found their own special and meaningful ways to “get ready” as they prepare their bread and their own hearts for an ordinance so central to their faith.

Kara Schofield lives with her husband, nearly grown youngest, and the family doodle in the Prosper Texas Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She can often be found at one keyboard or another: writing, documenting personal and family history, accompanying school choirs, and learning how to play jazz music. Her greatest joys are her four children and their spouses, a sizable extended family, pies, mountains, and Jesus Christ.