"RELEASED" SOCIETY PRESIDENT

Over three and a half years ago, when our world screeched to a frantic stop with a worldwide pandemic, our friend Paul Dickamore called to ask if he could come visit. Visiting is in Paul’s nature normally, but these were not normal times. We welcomed him in, our faces covered with masks, and we sat with appropriate social distance. Thinking this was a friendly visit between a church leader (we was our Bishop) and his congregants, I was stopped short when he asked if I would be willing to accept what we know as a church “calling”, or divine assignment, to serve as the president of our church women’s organization known as Relief Society. I shook off the disbelief, though I could not for the life of me figure out why they would want such a flawed person filling that job, especially in such taxing times.

Years before, when another Bishop called me to be president of the Young Women’s organization, for our teenage girls, I immediately told him I had a problem with what was known at the time as the Personal Progress Program (I was not a fan of requiring girls to set goals on someone else’s goal list). That wise bishop responded with: “Can you love the girls?”

"Yes. Yes, that I can do." And I did.

So again, I answered yes. 

Looking back to that pandemic period, I suspect the Lord and his appointed leaders might have needed my bend to creativity. We had to figure out how to meet the needs of women on the varying spectrum of faith, who could not gather in person, many of whom were single or widowed, divided by social demographics on top of a pandemic. I spent that first year working through how to keep our spiritual and social ship afloat.  At the same time my husband, as Presiding Judge in the Second District of Utah Courts was trying to figure out how to keep the courts running virtually. I simmered soup and made bread, to take to sisters and families, in our kitchen while Dave held virtual court in his Judicial robes in the next room. What a strange and memorable (and frankly exhausting) time that was.

During my tenure as Relief Society President we handled twenty funerals, a few from Covid but mostly from the demons of cancer, falls, heart attacks and other typical doorways to death. I have sung at more funerals than I can count, and have served so many luncheons and dinners to grieving families that our normal bi-monthly Sunday family dinners for 25-30 people seem small.

Of course, none of this is done singly. That’s the most beautiful part. We work as a team, pulling each other up and over and through each joy and challenge set before us. I’ve had four incredible Counselors, at separate times, and a kind and capable Secretary. And Compassionate Service Leaders who are the hands of God in action. 

A few months after I began my service a young man from Houston came to live with us. Ariel has become like member of our family. Our grandkids call him Cunkle Ariel (Cousin-uncle). He lives with us still. He is not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was not familiar with out tenets. But he saw first-hand what was happening from the inside out. One day, standing at the kitchen island, we were talking politics and government.

“You know what America needs, to get this government in shape? They need a Relief Society President.”

We had a good laugh. 

He’s not too far off, though. We could use leaders who are conscious of the needs of the people. A system that weaves a thread between the broader leadership and the quietest citizen (Ministering). A process for uniting people in common causes (worship) and meaningful and purposeful work (service). These unifying activities create a byproduct of self-worth and willingness to be led by trustworthy leaders. We own our ability to sacrifice (the paying of tithes and offerings/ fasting / temple and missionary service) and acknowledge we are miraculously made larger when we purposefully make ourselves and our personal treasury smaller. 

Ariel may be right… America needs a Relief Society President.

During the holidays in December, our current Bishop called to visit. I knew it was coming. He was going to release me. And I was worried that it would devastate me. I knew it was past the typical time to let another fill that position. I absolutely love how our church has a lay ministry, and we all take turns filling jobs. I love how this requires us to be patient with and tolerant of each other. I love how it allows us to bend our pride and request guidance from the Lord and His angels. Stagnant water gets stale and full of slimy undrinkable guck. Living water, like the cold streams that flow down our mountains, is fresh and clear because it is moving and alive. I love that we are part of a living gospel, based on a few unchangeable truths, shifting over stones large and small in our journey back Home.

So a few weeks ago our Bishop stood at the pulpit and released me and my presidency, and immediately called four new and highly capable women to fill those spots.

Here’s the strange thing. I had thought I would be an emotional mess when I was released. I have loved with every ounce of me the women of our ward. I have shared their joys and wept with them in their sorrows. I have worried and prayed and struggled and rejoiced so much that I expected to fall apart when I was no longer needed. But I didn’t. 

I didn’t.

It's still puzzling to me that it is ok to no longer have this calling. I suppose it might be different if I were moving and lost touch with them. But frankly, I feel five years younger already! I have renewed enthusiasm for my writing and my music. I’m thrilled to define myself first as grandmother/mother/wife/sister/friend. I’m thinking of teaching guitar and ukulele again. I feel, ironically, kind of born again. Woot Woot!

I still love whom I loved, and can serve one on one those I feel personally beckoned to serve. 

My friend Lisa, the new RS Pres., told me that when they laid their hands on her head and set her apart, she imagined her shoulders growing wider as they spoke. I love that image. We don’t ask for the burdens to change, we just need our ability to carry them to increase.

I pray for Lisa. 

And I continue to pray for my Sisters in Christ. They may have changed my calling, but they did not take away my discipleship.

Not one week after my release I got another call from the Bishop’s Counselor.

“I know what you want, so just tell me one thing…” I said.

“Is this going to interfere with my anticipated January hibernation?”

“No, not at all! You’re going to love this new calling! It’s going to be easy!”

Then he called me to the Ward Activities Committee. He called Tasha, one of my counselors, to that committee as well. We went to church the next day and there was a big old poster on the wall of the lobby announcing the Ward Holiday Party on January 6^th. Tasha and I looked at each other and whispered… “So much for a January nap.”

Of course it was great preparing for, decorating for, cooking for, serving and cleaning up after the ward party. I’m serious, it was. But it wasn’t by any means a nap!

The last two days I have washed and folded 19 large tablecloths from that party. It takes drying them one at a time and folding them warm to keep them from wrinkling. As I handled each one of those large round tablecloths, I recalled the many funeral meals from which I carried those tablecloths home to launder. I recalled the various gatherings we were finally able to have, after the pandemic eased up and people hesitantly began to allow themselves to attend, followed by the laundering of those cloths. I recalled quarterly Ministering interviews coming around relentlessly, and laundering dishcloths and cleaning cloths from the homes of sisters we lost to death or struggle. There has been an awful lot of cleaning up to do. 

Today I met with Lisa for a few hours, trying to help her walk into this massive new responsibility. We have a unique ward, with responsibilities few other wards in our area would know about. A Relief Society president knows more than she wants to know, and far more than any single person except the Bishop and Elders Quorum President would know. It's a lot. And that doesn't include the grunt work that involves laundry. I handed off the freshly washed tablecloths, folded and stacked like reams of white paper. It felt like a symbolic exchange of a heavy handbook and set of scriptures from one RS president to another. They represent the word of the Lord in action.

I salute all who are serving, and who have served, and who will yet serve the women and families of our congregations. We are blessed by each other. I join all my sisters in the human race in recognizing that we are all givers and receivers. But I witness with my heart and hands that it is in the giving that we find our truest most lovable selves.

Onward, Christian soldiers!

My Counselors Tasha Evans and Cheryl Simmons
2021-2023

Counselors Amy Lopez in pink & Erin Ashby in stripes
2020-2021
Secretary Bonnie Smith in black
2020-2023

Welcoming the new RS Presidency at our
RS Christmas party Dec 2023

Late Pandemic gathering

The children's nativity we have done for 30 years became a drive-through event in 2020

Outdoor ward council during the pandemic
(Bishop Paul Dickamore and his counselors 
Scott Christensen and Steve Hone

Pandemic RS activity in my front yard.

Welcoming missionaries sent home during the pandemic

Required attire for all activities 2020-2022

An all too familiar scene in the last 3 years
20 funerals in our ward.

Figuring out the Ministering jigsaw.
My kitchen table was covered for two weeks with 150 names

I am grateful we get to touch once again!

 

2-22-18 HIGH FIVE

If you've seen her dance, you will know. You will instinctively know the soul of my friend Sarah Robinette. She must have been one of those spirits who was chomping at the bit to get her body, because even though she is a petite little thing,  there is a gigantic spirit in there. That presence manifests in her dance, in her irresistible smile, and in every task she undertakes. All this magnificence vibrates in her being, in spite of struggles that repeatedly attack her and try to pull her down. She is hope personified.

Sarah and her husband Mark live north of us, in Fruit Heights, UT. Both Sarah and Mark are my musical cohorts. For years I have shared the stage with Mark at most of my concerts, and for Clytie Adams Ballet School recitals. Sarah is a guitar teacher's dream! She practises, even when she's feeling the weight of other burdens, and she just plain shows up. She's been showing up  at our Girls with Guitars classes for years, and it shows. She's a dandy guitar player.

A few years back Sarah and Mark spent a sweet summer night partying with their neighbors in an annual neighborhood BBQ. They ate yummy food and shared crazy stories, played music and danced and watched a movie on a big outdoor screen. It's one of their favorite annual activities, mostly because they really love the people in their neck of the woods.

The next morning, Sunday, Sarah and Mark drove to church separately, partly because Mark can't stand being late, and Sarah is more on my kind of time clock. The Robinette's are most often found sitting near the front, on one of the side sections where the pews line up against the chapel walls.  Mark sat on the inside, next to the wall. (I suspect that the wall is a good place to rest his head, but I am just guessing). Church had already started by the time Sarah arrived. The bishop was at the pulpit. As he spoke, Sarah tried to quietly sneak in, shimmying past a pew full of her neighbors to sit next to Mark. Just as she tried to squeeze past the first person on the bench, her friend raised his hand up, palm facing Sarah. Feeling the residual camaraderie from the previous night's gathering, she gave him a high-five. The person sitting next to him did the same thing. All the way down the bench Sarah slapped the hands of her good neighbors, smiling her huge sparkling smile, feeling the love. When she finally got to Mark, who was sitting next to the wall, he had his head down, pressed between his hands, shaking it back and forth. That was the point Sarah heard the bishop say; "Any opposed?"

You would have to be familiar with the Mormon Church to understand the humor in this. Our church has a lay ministry, which means all of us volunteer our service. Our leaders in the stake and ward organizations, which are basically our local congregations, prayerfully consider people and positions that need to be filled. They "call" members to serve in various positions, referred to as "callings". When a person accepts a calling, the person's name is put before the congregation and members are asked to sustain each one by raising their right hand. What Sarah had thought was a friendly "Hey, Friend!" was actually members raising their hands to sustain someone in a new calling.

Every time I raise my hand now, which is basically every Sunday, I get a little giggle going, thinking about Sarah Robinette. 

It seems quite fitting, to think that raising our hands to sustain each other is like giving them a big high-five. We don't raise our hands to indicate we are voting for someone to do a certain job; we raise our right hands, like we do before our legal courts, to make a commitment. We promise to sustain each other; to support, and pray for, and cheer them on. We essentially whisper, spirit to spirit: "You are called to teach the twelve-year-olds? Oh man, I will pray for you! You're gonna do great! If you need a sub, I'm here! If you feel overwhelmed and just want to talk, give me a buzz! If I find a couple of your students roaming around in the hallway during class, I'll help them find their way back!" (Notice how there are so many exclamation marks here? That's the grammatical version of a high-five!)

A few years ago, when part of our ward combined with another to create a brand new ward, I got up and dressed and drove to church for 8 a.m. choir practice. I was not super happy about it, being that I tend to get better sleep in the morning hours rather than late night hours. But I was there because, well, I figure if God gave me a voice I should use it to praise him. When I got there my friend Regan Tingey was there too, and both of us looked for the choir in every room that had a piano . Turned out practice was supposed to be at 8:30. While we waited for the rest of the choir  I asked Regan, "What compels you to be here so early Sunday morning?" He responded, "Well, when Patricia was called to lead the choir, I seem to recall raising my hand to sustain her."
Not only does Regan "get it" - putting his figurative money where his mouth is - he also has a lovely tenor voice. Basically Regan didn't just sit there in a Sabbath stupor and think he was voting for Patricia Anderson to do the choir thing if she wanted. He made an active decision to raise his right hand with his full heart, holding it up there for Patricia and everyone else to see, shouting without words "You GO, Patricia! I'm with you! High-five!"
I'm with Regan: High-five to everyone willing to serve! Rock on, Christian Soldiers!

If you are curious about the lay ministry of our church, here's a little synopsis of how it works:

Mormon Lay Ministry