Church callings

About 2 or 3 weeks after we moved in, DH and I were extended our first callings in the ward.  During the Sunday School hour, one of the bishopric counselors came into the Gospel Doctrine class and said that we were needed out in the hall.  The other bishopric counselor was out there and I went into a room with one of the counselors and DH went into another room with the other counselor and they extended callings to us.  We both thought that it was weird that they didn't do it together and it wasn't until we had accepted the calls that we were able to tell each other what they were...  I was called to teach primary - the Valiant 10 class which Blondie is in.  There was already another teacher so we would be team teaching and alternating weeks.  DH was extended the calling of Gospel Doctrine teacher.  Again, there was already another teacher so they would be alternating weeks for teaching.  DH was excited and a little bit nervous since we didn't know too many people in the ward and how things work yet in the ward - the whole dynamics of how everyone operates.  So the next Sunday we were sustained to our callings and we started moving forward.  Then on Tuesday of that next week I was outside working in the yard and one of the bishopric members pulled up to our house and came and talked to me and extended a second calling to me:  choir pianist.  I have to admit that I was not very excited about this calling.  I can play the piano and I can play all of the hymns in the hymnbook, but I am not a great pianist.  That was going to be a challenging calling for me.  So I finally got some music from the choir director and there were some hard songs that the choir was doing!  I was practicing any spare time that I could find and still couldn't get one of the songs down very well!

So we both operated in these callings for several weeks and we were both quite challenged.  DH had some interesting experiences teaching Gospel Doctrine class and some comments made to him about his teaching that he took quite hard.  Probably about a month later the ward executive secretary called and said that the bishop would like to meet with us in our home on a week night.  So the bishop came over and after some small talk he said that he had some releasings and callings to present to us.  He first looked at me and said that they would like to call me to be a ward organist.  There are already 2 other organists but they like to keep about 3 of them and just rotate every month so I would play for a full month of Sundays and then have the next 2 months off.  I was fine with that - I have enjoyed playing the organ when I have had that calling.  I was then expecting him to release me from one of my other callings but he quickly moved on to DH and said that they wanted to extend the call to him to serve as the 2nd counselor in the Young Men's Presidency - and with that he would be released from his Gospel Doctrine teacher calling.  This is a calling that DH has been hoping to avoid. It is definitely one that will cause him to grow and to learn a lot - and will take a lot more of his time than he is used to!

After the bishop finished extending those calls to us I asked him if I was going to be keeping my other 2 callings as well.  He then asked me to remind him what those other 2 callings were and I told him - and said that out of all of them, the choir pianist was definitely the most challenging - and time-consuming - calling for me.  He then said that he might have someone else in mind that could take over that calling for me.  So after a couple more weeks of playing the piano for choir, they extended the call to someone else so now I just fill in now and then when she is gone.

Although with the change of primary classes at the start of the new year, I was moved to a Valiant 9 class with no partner teacher, so I am teaching every week now.