A new responsibility

On Sunday, I was sustained to a new responsibility at church: President of the Relief Society for the Copper Basin Ward. For those of you who are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, that means I have stewardship responsibility for all the adult women of my ward (the local congregation). You can learn more about Relief Society on Mormon.org here.

One definition of steward is one who actively manages and directs affairs for another. In this, that other is the Lord. This is a very humbling responsibility. The women range in age from 18 to 98, married, single, divorced, widowed, with kids, childless, life-long members of the church, recent converts. As you can see, there is significant diversity.

The good news is, I do not have to do this alone. I have two wonderful counselors to assist me, a secretary to coordinate administrative details, coordinators, teachers, and others to help us help the women (sister). Our motto is Charity never faileth. We define charity as the pure love of Christ. In short, I am tasked with helping these wonderful sisters come closer to Christ and each other.

I have never aspired to such a position. I know that it requires significant time to provide this service, and until recently, full time employment precluded my ability to offer that time. Now that I am (at least temporarily) retired, what better way to spend time than in the service of my sisters? A teaching from the Book of Mormon is that when you are in the service of your fellow beings, you are in the service of the Lord. Therefore, serving my sisters allows me to serve the Lord.

I started this off by saying that I was sustained. In our church, the local leader, the Bishop, prayerfully considers the needs of the ward and listens to prompting of the Holy Spirit on how to meet those needs. Over a period of time, he was told that I needed to fill this position. When he met with my husband and me to issue this calling, I immediately had a number of impressions come into my mind, one being that, while shocked, I was also prepared. 

Sunday at the start of church, the Bishop released me from my previous responsibility in the nursery, which I have loved, and everyone raised their right hands to offer me thanks for the job that I had done. Then he called my name again, asking me to stand, along with my counselors and secretary. Everyone then voted, again by raising the right hand, to sustain me in my new office.

Sustaining is more than a ritual acknowledgement of the responsibility. It is also supposed to mean that you will do what you can to help that person be successful in their responsibility, whatever that might be.

So, for this past two weeks, I have been pondering what the Lord would have me do and a number of ideas have come in response. I am mostly excited about what this new opportunity will mean. As when I have accepted a new job, I am also nervous and want to do it 'right.' Luckily, there is no one way to do it right, so I think everything will work out. Another saying we have is whom the Lord calls, he qualifies. I trust that he will do that with me in this new calling.