New Ward

A few weeks ago they announced in our Sacrament meeting that we would be having a "ward boundary realignment meeting" the following Sunday at 7:30 p.m.  This was not a surprise to anyone since we had been bursting at the seams for a long time.  Senior primary had to meet in the chapel for sharing time because they couldn't fit in the primary room (and that is just senior primary-- 95 kids ages 7 and older is a lot of kids. Add another 60 junior primary kids and you'll start to get the picture) and we knew that getting a seat with a soft cushion and not being in the back of the gym on hard chairs meant that you had to be IN YOUR SEAT 20 minutes BEFORE Sacrament meeting started.  Mormon standard time did not exist in our ward, and you could forget about having your "self assigned seat" like a lot of families do in other wards.  If you weren't there early enough to save your seat it was g-o-n-e.  Many a Sunday I was at the door in a panic, "In the car everybody, there is a baby blessing today! Go! Go! Go!" You would think we were running late, but no, we were still on schedule to arrive 20 minutes early but on those Sundays I knew 20 minutes wasn't going to cut it and we were going to need to be even earlier! Many families in the ward had their "runner" who was dropped off at the door to run in and save a seat while the car was being parked.  You think I'm kidding, but I'm not.  Only about 50% of those in attendance got to sit on the cushioned seats, the rest were in the gym where you couldn't hear as well and the seats were hard. Having small kids on those hard seats was a nightmare! The sacrament always took quite a bit of time so speakers didn't start until about 35 minutes after the hour.  One time we were visiting my parent's ward and arrived within 5 minutes of the start and easily found a seat.  When they started so quickly Korinne was confused. "Why are they starting already?" She was used to sitting for almost 1/2 hour before Sacrament meeting ever began. When the speakers started at 25 minutes after the hour she turned to me and said, "They are already speaking? That's weird."   Yes, Korinne, very weird indeed.

It is an interesting experience to be in a ward that is going to be realigned. We have a lot of great friends in the ward and had an entire week to speculate and boy, did we speculate! The Sunday night it was announced Adam had maps pulled up of all 3 wards involved and our good friends came over and we went through every possible scenario for a few hours in our basement. It was hilarious.  In the end we came to the conclusion that our neighborhood was the one that was going to be cut off and put in a different ward.  By the time the realignment meeting actually occurred I was so tired of running through every scenario I was just ready to find out what was going to happen.  I was ok with whatever it was, I just wanted to know!  Well, we guessed right, our neighborhood was moved to a new ward and we were all released from our callings on the spot.  Adam was released as the Elders Quorum President and I was released as a Gospel Doctrine Instructor.  The YM President and the YW President were also in our neighborhood and the ward that we moved into also lost a big chunk of people including the RS President, the YW President and the Primary President.  The Primary suddenly went from having under 40 kids to have over 100 kids in just a few minutes and all without a President!  So, it's a mess and will take some time to figure out.  The Bishop only knows about 45% of the ward right now which explains why none of us have any callings yet.  Every organization is in 'survival mode' until things can get up and going.

We loved our old ward, but we are all perfectly fine with being in a new ward.  A lot of our good friends went with us so we already know half of the ward.  Britton was even a little disappointed the first week because he was expecting to meet a lot of new kids but there was only 1 kid his age that he didn't already know.  The only issue I have is kind of a silly one, we were moved from a newer church to an old church that was built in 1980.  It will take me some time to get use to it, but it's actually closer to our house (and when I say 'closer' I mean about 1/2 of a block. You can literally throw a rock from one parking lot to the other. Yes, only in this state do you have 2 churches so close together with 3 full wards meeting in each one).

For the past few weeks we have been enjoying our calling-less state of being.  We'll see how long it lasts. :-)