Unexpected Callings

As previously stated, when I was called as primary president, I was told that the primary has less than 20% activity.

I am happy to say that this statement is wrong.  We actually have about 40% activity and 60% less actives.  Which is still a lot, but it is a lot less daunting than what I had originally thought.

Since May, I have requested that the bishop call about 6 new teachers in addition to the ones we already had, as we split all the classes.  We will be requesting that 4 more are called at the beginning of the year as we feel it would be best to split the Valiant boys and the Valiant girls.  We feel this way will be better for re-activation efforts.  That isn't even mentioning the nursery or cub scouts!

On Sunday, our CTR 4 teacher requested that we get another helper in her class as the kids are wild and crazy and honestly hard for 2 teachers to handle, especially during Sharing Time.  Funnily (or sadly), the two worst kids in that class are my daughter and my first counselor's daughter.  Go figure. They are just a couple of Chatty Cathy's who are incredibly enthusiastic about everything.  Not necessarily bad, but very distracting for all the other kids in the class.  If all goes well, we will be getting a third teacher for that class.

For the past few weeks, it has been me, my very pregnant first counselor, and my secretary.  My second counselor was released a few weeks ago.  She has a lot of health problems and many other things on her plate right now, the calling was a bit too much on top of everything else.  We have been ridiculously overwhelmed of late without her, and today I was informed that we now have a second counselor!  On top of that, we submitted a name for a third counselor.  We had originally asked for a less active specialist, but because that is a calling I made up, we changed the name to third counselor (because we knew we would be working closely with her) and submitted that.  Tonight I was notified that the name we submitted for that suggested calling has been accepted, she has been called and she accepted!  We are so excited to have help again!

When we did have a full presidency, we were still not able to visit any of the classes, but now, with our third counselor, it will be possible.  I cannot express my joy to be working with these two special women who have accepted the call to help us in the primary.  I am overjoyed!

I know that miracles are happening, and it is such a privilege to be able to witness firsthand the Lord's hand in this work.  We have great plans to help the children make it to church and to help their testimonies grow.  What a blessing it is to be a part of such a great work.

Inspiration causes Perspiration

I was gearing up to teach a 5th Sunday lesson, taking the first lesson from September since we will be losing a day due to the dedication of the Ogden Temple.  This way we would be right on track.  However, after not having a chorister for a month and a half, we are so excited to finally have one, and want to do all we can to help her get on track.  We tried to teach the kids the songs during the time of no official chorister, it was just hard for them to actually learn them when there were so many different teaching styles.  Because of that, we decided it would probably be best to let our wonderful new chorister have the whole time to go over all the songs and find out which songs they know, and which need work.

We are so excited to have our chorister!

An idea I have been toying with is that of a third counselor.  Actually, I was initially calling it Less Active Specialist, but after counseling with my counselors, we decided it would be better to call it a third counselor because we will need to work closely with her anyway, and it will sound a lot less overwhelming to the one being called.  Firstly, we need this position because we have 60% of our Primary is less active.  When I was first called, I was initially told it was less than 20% activity, but having gone over the roles and learning about the families and kids more, I have learned that it is actually more like 40% activity.  Which is a huge difference!  That said, the majority of the less actives are in one class.  The teachers are amazing.  It is a couple, and the husband is a former bishop, the wife a former Relief Society president.  They are wonderful with trying to contact all of their less actives each week, on birthdays, etc.  But they are older, have health problems, and expecting them to contact 20 kids on their own each week is just not fair.  In thinking about that, I was trying to figure out a way to help them.  I realized releasing them would not fix the problem, it would just shift the burden from them onto someone else.  And we don't want to lose them!  Which is how I came up with the idea of Less Active Specialist.

The Less Active Specialist would help and encourage teachers to contact the kids not coming to their classes each week, and try to help them find new ways to help those kids be more comfortable.  Also, with the humongous classes (there are actually 2), they could help the teachers with that responsibility of contacting the kids.  That way it doesn't rest on the shoulders of one teacher.

As a third counselor, she could help us out exponentially!  My second counselor is very nearly having a baby and so will be out caring for the baby often.  As it stands right now, we don't have enough hands to be able to do all the things that need to be taken care of on Sundays.  We have the person conducting, who the bishop has requested sit behind the pulpit as the one presiding over the meeting.  We have the person who does the Sharing Time, and then there is the floater who is the one who breaks up chatty/fighting kids sitting in the Primary congregation, monitors the halls for straying children, and reminds the kids who are playing in the bathroom that they need to get back to class.  She also checks on the nursery periodically, and watches the doors for a picture of Jesus which tells us that there is a problem in a class that we need to step in and help out with.  We are also supposed to be visiting classes, but that is not feasible right now.  We really don't have enough hands.  Our Secretary, well, I don't know exactly what she does, but I know she is very busy and I am just grateful I don't have her job.  She is our life float and without her, we would be so lost on Sundays!  If we had that third counselor, we would be able to rotate and do classroom visits, which would, I think, help us be more in tune with the needs of both the teachers and the children.

I'm going to be honest, I don't envy the Sister who receives this call.  It will be a lot of hard work.  A lot.  But as they say, 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.

Now to convince the Bishop that this is a genuine need, and have him call the person whose name we submitted.

It's a waiting game.

But at least I have more time this week, not having to plan a Sharing Time!