What a day. Here I am cuddling with my beautiful wife on a Sunday morning in our home. She will never have to travel back to Greeley again for classes and she will start her student teaching this week. On top of all this, we arrived in Provo last night and found out that the Bishop wanted to see us on Sunday (today) at 10:30. My first thought was one of responsibility, I mean we have only been in the ward for a few weeks and I am already EQP (Elders Quorum President). My wife then reminded me that we don’t know that yet.
We arrived at church at exactly 10:30 and waited outside the bishop’s office. Within a few minutes he arrived back from ward council and after entering his office for only a moment, he popped his head out of the door and invited us inside. I was ready to tell him that although I was so busy with many things I would accept the calling as 2nd councilor in the bishopric or maybe even 1st if he wanted, but was stopped cold in my preparation. He asked me, “Brother Foster what callings have you had in the church before.” I froze, I knew I needed to impress him with my long list of experience, but nothing was coming to mind. I then realized that I had no experience besides a Sunday School Teacher and Elders Quorum Instructor. After he heard this he turned to Kristen and asked, “Sister Foster how about you, what kind of callings have you had before.” She then proceeded to list off callings like Institute Council (very powerful sounding) and RSP (Relief Society President). A resume like that is quite impressive. Bishop Gibb looked pleased, and then began “We would like to extend a calling to you both, a calling were you two can work together. And that is Sunday School Instructors over zone #3 in the Ward. You will be switching off teaching every week with another couple.”
I was stunned. I was going to be a what!!!!! Not even the first stringers, but over zone #3. Then as the Bishop began to explain the calling to us, I realized just how our Heavenly Father works; I realized that we were having a little taste of our own medicine. Let me explain…
We have only be to our ward a few times, and have really enjoyed it. The only “slow” part of the church service has been Sunday school. I don’t mean that the teachers are bad or that the people in the classes are boring and dry, but just that the very nature and design of Sunday school, especially in singles wards and married student wards, makes for “long” class hours. Maybe it is the fact that the men and women are together in the class and feel shy about asking and answering questions in front of strangers of the opposite sex, or maybe that people are just looking forward to Priesthood and Relief Society classes and don’t want to exhaust all of the spiritual and enlightening insights that they will surely contribute in those classes. But what ever it is, it seems like the teachers of Sunday School have to pry answers out of people by any means necessary. Sometimes by a forced answer, or clever game, or by the most used technique of them all, giving little candies as a reward for the raising of a hand. Now, because of our (mostly just my own) murmurings of how boring Sunday School is, we are to be those very instructors that have to work hard just to keep the class awake. As we left the Bishops office and were making our way to the car, Kristen just started laughing. I guess that we have learned our lesson, now we get to prepare a lesson for next week and one thing is for sure, little chocolate Kit-Kat Bars will be included. That should keep their attention.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
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