Church Callings

I was released from my calling as second counselor in the Young Women presidency today! On October 8, 2017 (the day of our primary program) I was released as the Primary President in the Santa Clara 5th Ward in sacrament meeting and then called as the First Counselor in the Young Women Presidency the same day. This is what I wrote in my journal: 

Brother Whitehead called and asked if he could come over and meet with me and Rick after conference. He extended a call for me to be the first counselor in the Young Women's Presidency! It is funny because I have had a strong impression for some time that I would get called into the Young Women's presidency after I was released from primary. (I get released next Sunday --the 8th).

About 2 1/2 weeks ago I found out that the new YW President had been called and that it would be Julie Steel, who is currently serving as secretary of our primary presidency. I knew she was in the process of choosing her counselors and honestly expected to receive a calling shortly after that. But then days went by and it didn't happen. More time went by and I thought surely the presidency must be called by now and so I just figured my impression was off, which was fine since I was more than happy to take a break! 

Anyway, apparently my name had been the first one to come to Julie and wouldn't leave her mind, but when she submitted my name to the Bishopric they really tried to talk her out of it since I had just served as the Primary President for the past three years. They then gave her several other names to pray about. She took the names and prayed about them, but still came back with my name -- and again they were hesitant. This happened a couple of times. Finally they said, "Are you sure?" She said, "yes, I am sure!" They said, "then we will stop trying to interfere with your inspiration!!"

So even though I am nervous and know it is a time consuming calling, I really feel like it is where I am supposed to be -- and it will be fun being in there with my two girls! I will be over the Miamaids and Janelle will be a Miamaid for another year and Jaiden will join her in six months. So that will be nice!! 

I loved serving with the Young Women in our ward and felt like Miamaids were the perfect age to work with! I enjoyed working with Julie Steel, Elsha Gubler, and Sue Gates in the presidency. A little less than a year later, in August 2018, a new ward was created taking some from the 1st Ward and some from the 5th Ward. So everyone was released from their callings. A few days later I was called to be in the Young Women's presidency in our new ward (the 17th Ward) only this time I was called to be the second counselor over the Beehives. I was excited to still be in Young Women, but was a little disappointed (at first) that I would be working with the Beehives instead of the Miamaids. But I soon came to see the advantages of working with the younger class and enjoyed the enthusiasm and excitement of the new girls. I also loved working with my new presidency: Kaci Esplin, Heather Ovard, and Hadli Gates. They were all such wonderful ladies! Some time later Heather received a Stake Calling and was replaced by Brooke Ence. She was awesome to work with as well! 

I enjoyed my experience in Young Women and am glad that I got to go to Girls' Camp with both the 5th Ward and the 17th Ward! Of course this past year has been really different, due to Covid, and so we didn't have Girls' Camp and weren't able to meet with our girls very much. Most of us had been serving with the Young Women for over three years counting the service in both wards and we knew that we would be getting released soon. I had mixed feelings with this. I knew it was time and change is good, but I also knew I would miss the girls and working with such amazing ladies! 

Bishop called our presidency in to his office to thank us for our service over the past few years. I thought it was neat that he did that -- it kind of gave us some closure to our callings before we were officially released in sacrament meeting. Later on the Bishop and his wife brought over some gluten free cookies and a thank you card. That was so sweet of them! Kaci also brought over a thank you card and the Stake Young Women's president also brought over a card along with a Chick-fil-a gift card. Then the new presidency and the girls brought over a candy bar poster on Wednesday night. I felt loved and appreciated! I was excited to learn that the new president would be my very good friend, Allison Williams. I am excited for her. The girls are in great hands! 

 

Night of Excellence

We had our Night of Excellence on the 7th. These are all our Young Women.  There were two girls missing but I think everyone else was there. We had about 25 YW in the 5th ward and only 17 in the 17th ward. The girls helped to make the decorations for one of their YW nights and also brought items to display. All of the girls sang "Peace in Christ," which they sung at Girls' camp last year. They also sung it in church a couple of weeks ago and were asked to sing it at the Missionary Fireside coming up next month.  

 

Night of Excellence turned out really nice. I had taken pictures of all of the girls on Sundays and had them printed and put them in little frames for the event. The Young Women's organization has a lot of big activities, but they also have a lot of leaders, which really helps to spread the responsibilities around. I love serving with the girls and leaders. It is a busy but fun calling.

 

Janelle earned her Young Womanhood Award this year back in February along with Sophie Smith and so those two were asked to speak. Janelle talked about one of her final projects, which was making a personal history book. I have made a Blurb book for a few of my kids of their early years with tons of pictures and the annual histories they write along with our annual family histories and funny anecdotes and stories. 

 

Janelle's book covers her first five years and we thought it would be a great final project for her to make another book that covered several more years of her life. The ten hour project ended up being more like a hundred+ hour project with the two of us working on it. It turned out really nice and is a wonderful and precious history. Out of all of my kids Janelle is the one who has enjoyed the history books I have made the most and has read them often and pretty much has all of the funny stories and anecdotes memorized. 

 

Evening of Excellence

I have loved serving in Young Women! I really enjoyed my primary calling, working with the primary children and my awesome presidency, but there was also a lot of administrative stuff to the calling which took a lot of time and wasn't always that enjoyable. YW is also a busy calling, but it is just SO fun! I love being with my girls and their friends. I already know most of the girls quite well since many of them have spent lots of time at our house through the years. We have had some great Young Women's activities and I have really enjoyed going to them! We had a board meeting with all of the YW leaders and one of the items on the agenda was the Evening of Excellence. I had been a bit nervous for this event because in past years they went all out with fancy decorations and treats and so forth and that is so out of my comfort zone! 

One of our presidency members mentioned that years ago instead of having the Evening of Excellence on a Wednesday night, they did a special YW program during Sacrament meeting. She said it was really neat and that way all of the YW would be able to participate (several have conflicts on Wednesday nights) and all of the congregation would be able to watch, instead of just the girls' parents. I really LOVED this idea!  It was also WAY more in my comfort zone!  The rest of the presidency liked the idea too and so we got permission from the Bishop and Stake YW Leaders to do a special sacrament meeting program. My girls teased me saying that since the new YW president and I just came from primary (and had just barely finished the primary program) we missed having a sacrament meeting program and were just dying to do another one, ha ha! So NOT true! The advantages of doing a sacrament meeting program is that it puts the focus back on the girls. It also completely eliminates extravagant decorations, invitations, food -- the whole bit! We are actually saving a lot of money by doing it this way! 

It still took quite a bit of time -- writing the script, making copies, practicing the songs, and so forth. The Miamaids and Laurels were all assigned to give shorts parts or talks and the Young Women prepared four songs. One of the songs, "Ask in Faith," is one they already know from girls' camp last summer (and it is beautiful) and then we had them learn "I Walk By Faith." That is an old song -- I learned it when I was in Young Women! But it is also beautiful and talks about the Young Women's values. The Beehives sang "Learn of Me," (another older song) and the Miamaids sang "If I Listen With My Heart." Both songs included various solos and duets from the girls. We have a lot of great singers in the group and so they sounded awesome! We practiced two weeks during young women's and had separate class practices for their songs. Our final practice was still pretty rough and we wished that we had another week or two to practice. We kept it really simple. It was WAY easier than a primary program, that's for sure! We were nervous because we had never made it all the way through the program and so we had no idea how long it would be. Would it go way over time or would we end really early? 

As it turns out we ended about ten minutes early. But I would rather end a little early then go over. The girls did a great job on their talks and songs and overall we felt like the program went well. The congregation seemed to really enjoy the program also and we received loads of compliments on the program and on the girls' beautiful voices!   

Happy Mother's Day!!

Mother's Day was AWESOME this year!  For part of my Mother's Day present, Rick taught my lesson for gospel doctrine today -- which I really appreciate!  That saved me several hours of time and stress this week.  Rick made me breakfast today and cooked a delicious Salmon dinner for the family.  Rick and I had lots of nice quality time time together today.  The kids all gave me their cute little gifts that they made at church and school.  Janika made me a darling little bulletin board.  Jase made me some gluten free peanut butter bars.  Rick bought strawberries, cheesecake, and ice-cream for Mother's Day Tea. 

Our Mother's Day Tea party was hilarious!  The little kids love dressing up for Mother's Day Tea -- the older boys, not so much!  Rick and I always throw something together at the last minute.  I searched my closet and saw my old overalls and thought it would be fun to wear overalls and pig-tails.  Rick must have liked the idea because he also found a pair of overalls (also mine) and wore them (with no shirt -- apparently he wanted to go really hick!)  His expressions, walk, and accent were so funny,  I was totally cracking up the whole time.  The kids just rolled their eyes and told him to please go put a shirt on! 

Janika said, "I think when we started this tradition we all dressed up in Sunday best and hats -- but now it has gotten totally out of control and it just plain weird!"  Maybe next year we will go back to the traditional dressy tea party wear -- but then again, that might not near as fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Mother's Day!

Today Janelle woke up with the stomach flu.  It hit her pretty hard and she was on the couch all day long.  We have also had bad colds going around the family.   I couldn't stay home from church since I was teaching Sunday School today but Jared wasn't feeling well either (sore throat, bad cough) and he and Jase ended up staying home with her.  I had Jase make a couple of packages of jello to go with our dinner and he also made peanut butter bars.  I enjoyed church.  The primary kids (which consists of our four kids and four other kids) sang and signed, "Love Is Spoken Here," for the musical number.  One of Rick's speakers cancelled and Rick ended up speaking at the last minute and did a great job.

For the Mother's Day gift, the Branch Presidency decided that instead of flowers or something they would offer a little buffet during Relief Society.  We loved it!  There was cut up strawberries, bananas, oranges, apples, yogurt, eclairs, and other little treats.

After church we had a delicious dinner of barbequed Salmon, rice, green salad, potato salad, and jello with peanut butter bars for dessert.  We decided to postpone "Mother's Day Tea" because Janelle was still not feeling well.  It is the first time we haven't had "Mother's Day Tea" on Mother's Day for ten years!  I missed it.  But we plan to do it next Sunday instead.  I hope we do because not only is it a fun tradition but we always get so many cute funny pictures!  I am grateful to be a mother and I am grateful for the wonderful example of my own mother and mother-in-law.  I feel very blessed indeed!