Changes

I recently finished up my long tenure serving in the Newburgh Ward Primary - almost four and a half years, to be precise.  Six months as a nursery worker. Just shy of four years in the Presidency, two of those as president.  Three babies!  I started when Jed was just 6 months old.  Back then, I knew virtually no children and had very little experience with them.  Now, I count hundreds of children among my very best friends and favorite people. I love teaching them, I love knowing them. I have been very, very blessed to serve them. I will miss them.

I will miss belonging with my presidency and teachers, too.  On Sunday, after helping out with Primary just a little bit the first hour, I found myself standing in the hall outside the Relief Society room, awkwardly, like a teenager who had just moved here from out of town.  My hands felt strangely empty; I felt purposeless, unsure. Do I really just walk in and sit there? Do I just make chit chat with all these other people milling around waiting? When they asked if anyone one was a visitor, I nearly laughed out loud -- does it count if you've only attended three times in the last four and a half years? People made announcements and gave me gifts and handouts and taught me lessons and it was all very strange.  Funny to feel so out of place in such a familiar place.

But don't worry, I won't be sitting around for long.  I've been called to serve as the Beehive Adviser, the Sunday teacher for eleven reputedly very chatty twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls.  Fortunately, since I've worked with them since they were eight or nine (!), I'm quite familiar with all of them so it should be a ball.