I haven't been posting because I've been just so busy with other things; particularly with my calling in the Branch as Relief Society President. This calling is time consuming in any unit but in ours it is time consuming for reasons of geographical distance rather than welfare work to be done. For example, I visited a sister yesterday, one of my assigned visiting teachees, and it took four hours! I started out on my way there at 10:20 AM (for an 11:00 AM appointment), made a stop at the bank (combining errands), then began down the country highway towards her town. After about 5 minutes I realized that I'd forgotten my Ensign and scriptures, as well as her new "prophet" manual, so I turned around and went back for them. I ended up almost 20 minutes late to our appointment. She is a wonderful woman, struggling with a mentally handicapped daughter, a stretched to the limit in his work as a surgeon husband, and loneliness in our little branch. They moved here from Price, Utah, where she had many friends and was visited regularly by her visiting and home teachers. She told me that in the five years they've been here home teachers have visited maybe three times; and she's not had any visits from visiting teachers. I listened to her for almost two hours. She just needed someone to talk to! I know the feeling. I get really lonely too and in the over two years we've lived here I've NEVER been visited by anyone from the Relief Society. Anyway, after visiting her I stopped at the store (combining errands again) and then drove home. Four hours had gone by! And that was just one visit, we have over ninety sisters in our branch. Attendance at RS on Sunday is usually four to six sisters.
As I've pondered and prayed about how to reach the sisters and help them, beyond the stupor of thought that persisted for a week, the thought keeps pressing on my heart and mind that I need to continue teaching and training the sisters in visiting teaching so that it becomes the norm and is effective. The previous RS President encouraged the sisters to simply send a card and that counted as a visit. She went so far as to instruct my visiting teacher to NOT visit me because it was "not safe." When my visiting teacher told me that I was stunned and absolutely incredulous. I live in a quiet rural town, I am a stay at home mom, and have never felt unsafe here.
I've been blessed with many revelations for this calling, from who should be my counselors, to what to put up on the bulletin boards, to what to teach. It has been a great oppotunity and blessing to me. But it sure doesn't leave much time for blogging.
