# 13: It Gives You a Reason to Dress Up

I work at a blue collar job, so most days I'm scruffy looking.  I wear blue jeans, tennis shoes, a T-shirt, and I usually don't put on deodorant or brush my teeth in the mornings, so I stink.  Sometimes I come home with paint on my hands and sawdust on my sleeves.  On Sundays, though, the Sabbath day, I dress up really fancy.  I like it.


If you keep going to Church, even if you don't believe everything the Church teaches, you'll have a reason to dress up once a week.  You'll have a reason to wear all those nice clothes you have hanging up in your closet. And dressing up makes you feel good about yourself.

Christ taught, and Captain Moroni also taught, that the inner vessel should be cleaned first, and then the outer vessel should be cleaned second.  That's good advice.  When it comes to repentance, this is true.  Your heart has to change before your behavior will.

But sometimes changing your external environment is a prerequisite to changing your inner self.  This is abstract, but what I'm trying to say is that sometimes simply putting on a tie makes you respect yourself. Just changing your clothes may be the beginning of making more serious changes, for the better. After all, isn't this the lesson we learn from cable fashion shows like, "What Not to Wear?"

In addition to thinking about the way you dress on Sundays, you can pay attention to the way other people are dressing.  It's fun.  If you look around, depending on where you go to church, you'll see some interesting stuff.  Maybe you'll see a bolo tie with a dead scorpion in it, maybe some boots made out of alligator skin, maybe some shoulder pads, maybe some cuff links, maybe a fuzzy brown cardigan, maybe you'll see a hot guy or a hot gal (be careful not to lust!), or maybe you'll even see a General Authority look-a-like.

Looking around at what people are wearing at church is fun!

So the next time Brother Orthodox is bearing fervent testimony of Elijah's visit to the Kirtland temple or some other event in church history that never really happened, just look around at what people are wearing.

Are the clothes cool?  Are they fashionable?  And how about the jewelry?  Don't you just love the jewelry?