A Lesson Learned Early!

This past week I had the opportunity to talk with a sweetheart of a lady that was really struggling with a church calling.  She has been the president of the young women organization in her church ward for the past several years, has a young family and is struggling from the pressure of trying to juggle family and church.  As we were talking I felt impressed to share with her a lesson I learned many years ago when I was in her same situation.

I was serving as the Young Women's President when Jared was 2 and Bran was 5.  Being Young Women's President requires alot of meetings on Sunday, a weekly activity for the girls, girl's camp, young conference, etc.  It had gotten to the point that when I walked out the door to go to a meeting the kids would cry, beg for me to stay home and of course that would break my heart.  I went in for a  temple recommend  interview with the the stake presidency and had the privilege of meeting with one of the counselors (professionally he was judge, and later he went on to be called as a Stake Patriarch).  During our chat he asked me how my church calling was going so I unloaded on him how I was struggling with leaving my little kids to serve the  youth in the ward.  What he told me next was something that I will never forget.  He explained that a few months prior he was walking out the door to attend a Stake Presidency Meeting and his son was shooting hoops in the driveway.  His son ask if he would shoot hoops with him and he informed him he had a church meeting to attend.  He walked a block from his house and said it just hit him...the stake presidency will never remember me being late for a meeting but my son will always remember that I did not have time to shoot hoops with him.  He turned around went back and shot hoops with his son.  Family comes first and then our church callings. 

Because of that conversation, Rob and I have always made sure that we were there for any activity Brandy or Jared might have (and now that includes our grand kids) no matter if that meant we would be late or even miss a church meeting.  If all is well with our family, then we can serve the Lord 100%.  Now not all people will agree with this and feel that church callings need to have top priority, but this is the philosophy we felt inspired, after the insight given to me by this amazing man, to use in our family.  And hopefully it has worked because we have two amazing kids who have firm testimonies of the gospel, married in the temple and are active in the church. 

This was one of the happiest days of my life - when Jared returned from serving a two year mission in the California San Jose - Spanish Speaking Mission

Now you may ask why I am blogging about this?  The answer is because my blog is my journal and now that my kids are parents of there own I wanted to share this valuable lesson with them that we were fortunate enough to learn when we were starting out our family.

TCIT