I’m a windowsill

So our ward at church got split last month. (You may recall my complete foot-in-mouth moment shortly afterwards.)  Mister got a calling the day the ward split was announced (1st counselor in the Elders Quorum).  I am still waiting on one.  Despite all the teasing about getting a Primary calling, I figured that my announcement would put enough worry into the President’s head (“was she joking?  What if she wasn’t?”) to not call me. So far so good.

But I thought I would probably get a calling.  Any calling.  I’m starting to feel like the last person picked for the 3rd grade kickball team (I know all too well how that feels, believe me).  Don’t I have something to offer?

  
Really.  Don’t I?

I realize I may be a little too mouthy for Young Women.  And we all know how I feel about nursery.  But seriously, there are a lot of other callings!

The bishop announced in testimony meeting today that we shouldn’t feel bad if we don’t have a calling yet because the ward is like a house, and no part is more important than another part.  Um, yes, actually there are some parts that are more important than others.  (Which is why the roofs of the ward were called three weeks ago.)  I would think that a foundation is pretty essential.  And walls are good too.  At this point my calling (if I had one) would be functioning more as the venetian blinds of the ward.  Or maybe the exhaust fan in the bathroom.  Does he really think those are just as important as the ceiling?

 

I’m not trying to get your sympathy (OK, I am a little), so you don’t need to post a reply about how you’re sure I’ll get a calling this week.  I’m sure I will too.  Because the bishop also pointed out that we have too many callings and not enough people (just ask Lisa P. who already has two callings).  It’s just kind of depressing that I’m not more of a window or a chimney.  Or a toilet even.

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12 thoughts on “I’m a windowsill

  1. now you’ve done it. big trouble. i smell stake calling on the horizon.

    ps this same thing happened to me about 7 years ago. i couldn’t believe i felt like i was being “passed by”. but we are all human.

    i VALIDATE YOU, JENNIE! even if you don’t like hsm3.

  2. I feel your pain– callings are such a strange Mormon phenom. I need to email you. I’ve been thinking of writing about callings on Segullah this week.

    And you know what? I think you are the hearth.

  3. Hey I couldn’t agree with you more. Especially since my calling doesn’t have a name. Yep. They actually said “We want to call you to do this – but we don’t really know what it is called”

    Then they told me they want me to make 50 copies of the visiting teaching message each month and pass it out in relief society.

    So I am the relief society paper passer outerer.

  4. Do you really feel left out?

    I do understand a little bit, but I kind of would like to sit on the back row and just show up for a while.

    Not that I’m uber important mind you, just HAVE to be there every week, participating.

  5. I really can’t relate after a very stress-free, just released as Primary President high. My guess is you have scared the crap out of everyone who might think of calling you. (As you point out) Perhaps you could make a list of callings you would like, and/or accept, and give it to the Bishop? Having had a calling that requires calling people, a LOT of people, I can very much sympathize with the “roofs” of the ward. It is like building a house of cards. You have to analyze everything from “Can they have a calling?” to “Well, they can’t do YW because they have 6 kids and her husband travels, so she can’t come on Wed” and, then there’s, “I hate kids so don’t call me to primary” (But really, who would say such a thing?) I am now calling-free, and personally, I plan on enjoying it for a while! I’d start to worry if next month you still dont’ have a calling. Honestly, I’d submit names, they’d be approved, and 4 weeks later they would get called.

  6. Besides the one time I went six weeks without a calling (and was about to go ask the bishop to please give me something to do), I was once given a calling so unimportant that the bishop forgot about my calling exactly one week after I was sustained.

    I was sitting on the front row, prepared, having done my part to magnify my calling, when the bishop stood up, looked at me, and then asked the person to please do the very thing I had been called/was prepared to do. And that continued until we moved. Seriously.

    In that ward, I was not even an unused electrical outlet: I was a piece of siding that had blown off in a windstorm but no one noticed.

    Now that I’m serving as a part of the roof (or foundation, I guess), I look back and guess I was supposed to learn something. Whatever.

  7. I’m sorry, I have ZERO sympathy for you. Not even a tiny little bit. You get to be a vase or a painting for once in your life and just sit there in church looking pretty and listening to all the talks and lessons. Poor you.

  8. I will HAPPILY give you one of mine. Or both – then you can feel double loved! I smell Enrichment committee for you……I’ll be so jealous!

  9. I would love to be a person without a calling. Then I wouldn’t have to worry if it was my turn to teach, or if I needed to pick people up for activities, or if I offended someone in the class with a little sarcasm that tends to ooze out when I speak.

    I would like to just hang out in the back of a class, or even just go to a class and sit there and not listen. But maybe that just makes me lazy.

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