Dimanche

When you have a bishopric calling--and ward clerk is housed under the bishopric--you have long Sundays. Fortunately, my Sundays aren't as long as those of the real bishopric, or even as long as those of the executive secretary.

But today was especially long, which is why it is so late that I am writing this.

Today started out fairly typical. I had to get up to go to bishopric meeting. We discussed the problem our ward will be facing of an enormous turnover and even another possibility of ward changes I'm not yet authorized to speak of. Hopefully they'll be able to get me more assistants. It was our last Sunday with Alex, our executive secretary, who's getting married this week. I've known Alex since I moved into my apartment in winter 2012 and had my basic editing class with him. He and his almost-wife Sariah and I were extras in a library promo this week. It was fun; we got to tear paper and be crazy. I'll have to watch out for when the video comes out.

After bishopric meeting comes ward council. But I had to leave ward council early because I had a financial audit. I've only had this calling for three months, and I don't know finance stuff, so I didn't know what I was doing, and our finance clerk, Trent, was gone. But a few months ago we had problems with our MLS computer system, and when we redownloaded the program it lost a lot of our information that is necessary for the audit. The stake clerk is helping me get it back. But we had to postpone the audit, so I have to do it again next week.

The time between ward council and church is usually pretty relaxing, as it was today. I just hang around the bishop's office, doing some minor clerical work, while it is the bishopric and executive secretary who actually have to do things. Our first counselor, Brother Jensen, has a wife who is extraordinarily nice and always sends food for all of us at church. I always munch on whatever she's brought to tide me over through church.

Then church was pretty normal today. During elders quorum, our activities committee chair asked if we preferred having ward prayer with just our ward or combined with other wards. I called out, "Just our ward." Then the activities guy asked for other opinions, but no one said anything. Our bishop said, "I think that's how our country runs--one loud person gets to decide for everyone else." It was kind of funny.

Because my finance clerk was gone, I had to count tithing today. I haven't done it much, so I'm not very good at it. I'm ward clerk and I'm not good at counting tithing. Oh well.

And then after I was done counting tithing, I went to visit one of my home teachees. I took the first counselor in the elders quorum presidency, because my companion is the above-mentioned Alex, and he had to go somewhere and has other things on his mind. But the end of that home teaching visit was really just the beginning. Our bishopric really wants to make sure home teaching gets done, so they decided that they would go around and visit the people who weren't home taught. The elders quorum president and his first counselor were going out, and since I had free time and I feel bad for the bishopric for spending so much time doing church things, I offered to go too. I went with Brother Jensen, and we made four home teaching visits.

My roommate Jordan and I saw an interesting thing on Friday. We saw what we thought was a weird, big bug, but when we looked closely, we saw that it was actually some kind of winged insect (it looked kind of like a miniature hornet, although I'm not sure what it was) dragging a dead spider across the ground. The spider was twice the size of the insect. But not only did the bug drag it across the ground, it dragged it up the wall! Sometimes I feel like that dead spider during home teaching (or missionary) visits, because I'm just the ugly one who doesn't do or say anything and the other person has to pull my weight. (OK, I don't actually feel like this analogy works. I'm just trying to describe what happened this week in the context of Sunday, and this was the only way I could think of putting in the bug story by describing Sunday.)

On the home teaching visits, I talked about my appreciation of the pioneers, which I blogged about on Wednesday on my day off. That was a good, relaxing day, although the only holiday-ish thing I did was light some sparklers with some people.

Then after a brief interlude, I went to ward prayer, which didn't really happen. Another ward came over to join us, and Jordan told the activities guy in that ward, "Today in elders quorum there was a unanimous vote not to combine with other wards." That surprised the other guy, so he had to clarify that only one person voted. The other guy said, "Who was it? We'll go beat him up." I just smiled knowingly, glad that no one told him who it was. I need to get better about being social and outgoing in my ward (not in other wards), because it would make my clerk job (and just life in general) easier. I went to the Mt. Timpanogos Temple yesterday and thought about that while I was there.

Because it was boring and combined and nothing happened at ward prayer, I went home. Then I accompanied my roommate Jordan to home teach the people across the hall--one of whom is Alex. It was funny to be home teaching my companion.

After that, a girl in my ward named Katria had invited me over for some banana bread before her home teachers came over. On my way over, I saw that someone had destroyed the watermelon jack-o-lanterns Jordan and I made on a double date on Friday, which we had put at the entrance of our complex. I also saw my old horse friend Carissa on my way over. (Speaking of horse friends, this week I watched the first episode of Mister Ed on Hulu. For a show about a talking horse, it's kind of a boring show.) While I was at Katria's apartment, her home teachers came over, and they were two of the guys I had just been home teaching. They invited me to stay and be home taught. But I had enough of home teaching for the day, and I still needed to write this, so I declined and came home.

It was a satisfying Sunday. But I hope next week is calmer.