Volunteers of Faith

I spent most of the day volunteering at the (what's it called now? Something Garden) in Boston with my friend Noelle, for the Women of Faith Conference. We're both attending for free this weekend, because we volunteered. (Great seats! It pays to volunteer!)
I don't know much about this conference, except that people who know the people I know say it's Amaaaaaaazing. The other women who volunteered today said it would be Amaaaaaaaaaaaazing, too. On one hand I'm encouraged/intrigued, and on the other, I'm alllllll "go ahead, impress me." So we shall see what the (as my Uncle Bud used to call them) the PRODS have up their sleeves for me and the True Christians in attendance.
There were about 40-50 women there this morning to volunteer. The excitement started with a back-door entrance to the Garden (the employee entrance! I was so excited to be able to see the bowels of the stadium.) Then, after checking in, showing our ID, passing in our consent form, getting our official badges and wrist bands, we sat down in the arena seats to wait for the programs to be delivered. Our job, you see, was to put the program bags on all the reserved seats. Apparently the truck with the programs in it was lost in Boston somewhere, so we had about an hour to sit around.
When the program bags arrived, the young man who was coordinating the volunteers rallied us to action. Our job was hampered by the fact that the chairs in this arena are all of the type where the seats flip up when not in use. This was a perplexing and challenging situation for the extra- earnest, Christian-t-shirt-clad volunteers. They JUMPED to work, trading tips on how to place the bags so they'd stay and jumping ahead to the next section. Noelle and I couldn't help but laugh at how GRAVELY SERIOUSLY they took their charge, shouting out helpful tips to everyone when they thought they'd found the BEST way to place the bags. They often had to be pulled back from bagging further sections, their enthusiasm was so boundless.
We couldn't help it! We laughed whenever anyone shouted out a tip, and laughed when one would yell at another "NOOO!!! You don't DO that section! He SAID!!!!" We just couldn't help ourselves. At one point, after having been given the direction to move to section 20 oh..... 4-5 times, and everyone yelling to each other, "he said SECTION 20!!!" I turned to Noelle dryly to say "what section now?" and three earnest Christian ladies said to me "TWENTY!!!"
Okay, maybe you had to be there, but I just think it's shades of things to come for this weekend. Such earnest-ness, such Christianity, and all women. Should be interesting.