Callings & Connections

Since we've been back to America, we've been busy in the Church. I don't know why we're surprised by this, but we've been more busy with callings and assignments that we expected. In India we were crazy-busy teaching Seminary, Young Women, Primary, Institute, Priesthood, English, piano, visiting members, counseling with members, attending baptisms, teaching with the missionaries, and Rich was leading the branch. We did all of that because there weren't many other people who had the time and resources to do those things. We had a car, we spoke English, we didn't have to work on Sunday. Not many in our branch had such luxuries. Now Rich is a high councilman, and I've got four callings/assignments: stake food storage specialist, ward emergency preparedness specialist, temple preparation teacher (with Rich--my favorite one), and more recently Young Women Camp level leader.

The YW camp one almost sent me over the edge. "There's so many other people who could do this," I ranted to Rich, "Why do they have to pick me?" I don't mind being busy at church. I think I actually usually enjoy it. Yet in India the work I was doing was in the trenches, the foundational, anchored-in-the-basics-of-the-gospel stuff. I almost always felt like I was building the kingdom in everything I did. Now as I collect money for berry orders, hassle people to get their reports in to me, send emails about preparedness that few people read, and plan preparedness activities that few people attend, it doesn't feel so meaty. I'm not saying the stuff I'm doing now is not important. I know that it is in its own way. But I miss doing all the teaching I was doing in India, teaching the scriptures and gospel principles and leadership principles that were fresh and new to people. Here in America where we often take the Gospel for granted, Church sometimes feels more like a chore than a saving force in our lives.

Yet the saving force remains, sometimes to save little old me. After I did all that complaining about the YW camp calling, I went to the first activity--a sleepover with the youth camp leaders on Valentine's Day weekend--a little grudgingly. There I found an instant friend--Diana N. who lived in Bangalore, India for a summer with her kids while her husband was there working. She traveled all over without her husband, because she couldn't stand not to. We stayed up almost all night talking about everything from food to travel to feeding the poor to the growth of the church to the people we knew in common. Diana is working on a children's book with a woman she met in India that tells the stories of child-pioneers in the Church in developing nations. She could talk to me about India in ways that others cannot because she has seen it, smelled it, tasted it, traveled it, vomited it. Yet she was endlessly hopeful in her outlook.

That night I was reminded that the Lord knows what I need and will save me through the stuff he sends me to do and the people I meet along the way, even if I'm not saving the world every day. And now he's blessed me with another meaty assignment--teaching the temple prep class with Rich. I love teaching with the man I love best, and it's thrilling to participate with some wonderful people on their road to the temple. I'll stop complaining, I guess.