...I feel like doing is going out and cracking some skulls playing an intense and emotionally charged football game. I usually want to go and study my scriptures afterwards or listen to some spiritually inspirational MoTab. The firesides can be very moving just like a testimony meeting and spiritually moving.
To be fair, I've never heard a player say they think the fireside detracts from their game prep either mentally or emotionally but I haven't heard them say it helps either so we have no way of knowing for certain. I'm sure the subject's probably come up somewhere during an interview but I haven't seen it.