Sinner

I'm pretty sure lighting will shoot down the sky at some point during this post. I should probably attach a fork or something to my head. But here it is...

I hate Scouts. Not the boys themselves. Well, sometimes. But what I'm referring to is the job of tending the Scouts. It's my church calling. For those of you not familiar with my church, I'm LDS. And our church is entirely run by volunteerism, from the head of the church down to the most menial of jobs. (That would be Scouts in case you are wondering.) The church building is cleaned by members of the congregation, the sermons are given by members of the congregation, the organ music is played by members of the congregation....everything. All on a volunteer basis. And every so often the bishop, who is the head of the congregation, asks a member if they are willing to have a new job, or calling. It's generally understood to be very bad form to say no. 'Cause, you know, someone has to do all those jobs. Well, 6 months ago I got asked to be in charge of the Wolf Scouts. And I said yes. But I hate it.

It's not so much that I don't like the boys. Some boys are better than others. Some days are better than others. But I just have no passion for it at all. I don't care about building bird feeders out of pop bottles or kites out of grocery sacks. I don't even care about collecting can goods for the Food Bank or picking up trash on the side of the road. Because I'm with the Scouts. And stinky, sweaty little boys just isn't really my thing.

I know this is an awful thing to say. I'm sure those boys are learning really valuable life lessons from Scouts, like how to make musical instruments out of toilet paper rolls and dried beans, but I just don't want to be the one to teach them.

There. I said it. Now I'm going to hell.

Incentive

Church at 2pm BLOWS. big time. You sit around all day waiting for it to start. And when you get done, it's night time. So there's only one way to make yourself look foward to 2pm church.... A NEW OUTFIT!

Ladies (and my one gentleman reader), I give you....


What do you think? Good enough to chase the 3pm Sunday School Blues away? No, you're right. It needs new shoes.





There. Now I'm feeling MUCH more spiritual.

Not To Scare the Pants Off You, But...

If you have a nice comfortable house,
If you drive a nice comfortable car,
If you buy yourself and your kids new clothes when they get too
small or too old,
If you eat 3 full meals every day and still have money left over,
If you believe in revelation at all,

YOU NEED TO WATCH THIS.




Thanks, Jennie. Keep giving me these kicks in the behind so I don't forget.

This is For All the Mormons Out There

So I was thinking today about how there are some parts of my calling(s) I hate. First, I am the visiting teaching coordinator. I collect all the visiting teaching supervisors' reports once a month and enter them into the computer. I pass out new assignments and new report sheets every month or two when changes are made. I help once a year with the visiting teaching interviews, and also once a year with the visiting teaching dinner thingy. Overall, it's the easiest cake-walk of a calling I've ever had. But I do hate driving around the ward in the freezing cold, getting out of my car every few houses to run a piece of paper up to the door. Not my favorite part.

I'm also on the Enrichment Committee, in charge of the Young Couples Activities, held monthly. Yes, that is EVERY SINGLE MONTH. I'm in charge of motivating young 20 and 30 something marrieds to come hang out with each other. You wouldn't think so, but it's a drag. No one wants to come. Because I live in a ward of deadbeats. Because they're too busy. Because they're too poor. Because they couldn't possibly stand a night away from their kids with FREE babysitters. Whatever. I spend a ton of time advertising the activities--emails, evites, phone calls, personal door to door invitations, flyers, and Sunday announcements--and then the same 6 couples come who come to everything, and every so often we'll get one random new couple or slightly inactive couple. I guess those few random couples keep me going. But sometimes I just wish people here were willing to put any effort into being part of a ward family. But again, it's not the worst calling ever. There are lots of worse callings I could have. And that got me thinking.....what are the worst callings I could have? And I came up with a list of the top 3 worst callings ever. (Just for the record, anything with the word "president" in it automatically qualifies as a worst calling. So I'll just skip over those and go to the less obvious ones.) Here are mine:

3. Activities Committee Chair (been there, done that. HATED IT. Soooo much pressure, so little budget.)
2. Sacrament Meeting Pianist (You have to be there EVERY week, ON TIME. No thanks.)
1. Primary chorister, specifically jr. primary. ( Trying to come up with fun, creative, interactive ways to teach little kids-- who can't read and can't sit still for 15 seconds-- songs every week for twenty long minutes? Shoot me now.)

But I realize everyone is different. So what are your top 3 worst possible callings?

Conference Rehash

Well, General Conference just finished. I've watched some of it live on TV, some of it on recorded DVR, and some of it on the radio as I've been cooking or in the car. I still have 1 1/2 sessions to watch, but I thought I'd mention a few of my favorite talks and see what others thought.

My favorite talk of the Saturday Morning session was by L. Tom Perry. He spoke about simplifying our lives, using Thoreau's Walden experience as his guide. I've always loved Thoreau and have had a quote by him from Walden ("Our lives are frittered away by detail: simplify, simplify") on my chat group signature for years. So it really hit home with me. It is good to be reminded of this idea of simplifying when I start longing for things, wanting to spend more money and stretch the budget tighter, specifically on a new house. Yes, I'd love to move. I'd love a new neighborhood and a better ward, I'd love a house with a garage, central air, and way more storage (pantry, linen closet, coat closet, broom closet, any closets!). But this talk really made me realize that I need to be grateful for what I have. The house I have is nice and big with enough rooms for all of us, a good (though cramped) kitchen, hot water whenever I turn the tap on, big green trees that shade my yard. And most importantly, I have a mortgage payment I can afford. We could afford a bigger house payment if my husband's paycheck stayed as it has been for the last year or two. But that isn't guaranteed, especially in today's economy. So there is real peace of mind in knowing that while we stay in this house, we never have to worry about paying the house payment.

I also liked the talk by Boyd K. Packer who spoke about how the Lord will stand with his people in hard times as he did for the early Saints. It's good to have reminders that the Lord is mindful of us, even us as individuals, and that he will be with us if we follow the commandments.

Like I said, I haven't finished all the sessions yet, but those were my favorites so far. Anyone else have a favorite talk?

If you aren't LDS and want to know what the heck I'm talking about , you can find out more about our church at lds.org

President Hinkley has died

Our dear prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley has died at age 97. Reports are not very detailed yet, but what we've been told is that he died due to old age essentially. It came suddenly to most of us who only heard the news after he was dead, but he died with his family around him, so obviously there was some warning that he was not doing well, and they gathered to be with him.

I can remember President Kimball being made the president of the church although I don't have memories of David O McKay before him. I also remember vividly when President Kimball died and president Benson was made the new prophet. I also remember him dying and President Hunter becoming the new prophet. But most of the time I remember, it was sweet President Hinckley at the head of our church. I met him twice--once in San Diego at my stake singles conference and once in Salt Lake when he attended my singles ward along with President Faust. I was in the ward choir who sang at that event and sat only a few seats away from President Hinckley. I always admired him for his strength, his humor, his humility, his candor, and most of all for his ambition in spreading the church and in getting temples established so widely on the earth.

I have always loved President Monson and will be thrilled to have him as the new prophet, but no one will be able to replace the amazing effect that President Hinckley had on the earth. He was an amazing leader of our church.