When I was a teenage my Dad was in a really bad car accident. It was a depressing time as the effects of his accident and recovery kind of weighed on the family. After my Dad finally made it out of the hospital and was convalescing at home we had a family home evening lesson about the sacrament which my Dad gave. After the lesson was over, our Home Teacher showed up with permission from the Bishop to help administer the sacrament for him and the rest of the family since he had not been able to go for quite awhile. The bread was passed on a dinner plate and the water was in paper picnic cups with some kind of flower pattern on the side. 

As the sacrament was being passed, I felt the spirit so strongly which surprised me for two reasons. One reason was the somewhat loud pattern on the paper cups which kind of seemed liked the visual equivalent of being disruptive or irreverent. But the other was that my Dad never seemed very “spiritual” to me – he seemed to be somewhat skeptical about a lot of things we heard in church or from other church members. He read Dialogue and Sunstone magazines and I saw them laying around the house occasionally which my Mom never liked and kept bugging him to not read. This, despite being on the high council, then bishop, then patriarch. So the Lord worked through him anyway to bless us with the spirit during that sacrament.

It was warm and unmistakable, just like when I got my testimony of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith and the church in general. I don’t remember comparing notes with anyone afterwards, but my Mom got up during the next Fast and Testimony Meeting and shared the experience with the ward and related how strongly she had felt the spirit, despite the nonstandard circumstances, referring to the picnic cups. It really strengthened my testimony that my Mom – and presumably others in my family – had felt the spirit too, even independent of each other.