My Calling

This weekend I had one of the most joyful spiritual experiences of my life, so I want to write about it.

Here's a timeline of events leading up to this weekend:

In 2012 I was called to serve as a ward family history consultant in the Nottingham Country Ward in Katy, Texas. We moved to Iowa in July of 2013, and I was called to serve again as a ward family history consultant in the Ankeny Ward.

During this entire time I served as a ward family history consultant. Bishop Russell called me to serve as the "family history consultant - lead." This meant that I was supposed to lead the other consultants, make sure they were trained, and coordinate our efforts to help the members in the ward in their goals. The goals were never explicitly stated at this time, but they were certainly along the lines of: take names to the temple, help build a deep love for their ancestors, and build familysearch family tree's giant tree for the whole human family. When Bishop Russell set me apart, he gave me a priesthood blessing that I will never forget. Picture a sharp, witty, confident, athletic man in his 40's or so, placing his hands on my head with one of his counselors, and while saying the words to his prayer, he just becomes completely overcome with emotion, taking long pauses and crying. I don't remember everything he said in that prayer, but he specifically blessed me that I would find names in my family that were difficult to pronounce for people who have been waiting for a long time, and that they would accept the temple work being performed for them.

For the next three years, without exception, every single time I took names to the temple, they were mispronounced. These were my Czech family members. It became some kind of delicious inside joke, this repeated consternation and frustration on the part of the temple workers. They often apologized for butchering the names. Krčmarský, Pavliskovec, Chodura, Michna...these are the kinds of names that nobody could pronounce.

There is nothing that can compare to the feeling of peace and assurance that I have in the temple while performing the ordinance work for these people to whom I owe my life.

There were a lot of realignments of ward and stake boundaries between 2013-2016. The ward was split in half vertically, then the wards were unbalanced so they changed the dividing line to be vertical, then the stake was realigned due to the large growth of members in the area (which is probably mostly a factor of how much this place is growing in general). It is hard for me to keep track of all the changes. We had four different bishops in four years. The result of all these changes was that I knew almost all the members in both the Ankeny wards.

In 2016, the title of the calling changed to be "ward temple and family history consultant." This news was given at RootsTech 2016, which I attended.

In 2017 (I think?), the little corner of North Ankeny in which I live was assigned to the newly created Rock Creek Ward. All of us who were "switching" wards suddenly lost our callings en masse. I approached Bishop Morales, the husband of my good friend Melanie, and jokingly asked him when he was going to call me to serve as a temple and family history consultant.

I was called as the First Counselor in the Young Women's Presidency, which meant that I was in charge of helping the 12 and 13 year old girls. They did not give me a temple and family history calling.

I continued to pester the bishop about it. He was annoyed. I was way more annoyed. I felt like the blessing which Bishop Russell had given me was not totally fulfilled; that my calling wasn't "over", that I hadn't finished - that I'd been robbed of an opportunity to serve; after all, I'd only lost it because the wards had been changed. Bishop Morales gave me an excuse that I could not stomach at the time: I was pregnant so they didn't want to overwhelm me with responsibility, and they wanted me to focus on serving the YW. It was like they were wrenching a piece of my identity from me, and I was doubly pissed because this was the one semi-professional thing that I had to show on a resume for the past decade of my life as a stay at home mom. Far more than that, I was incredulous about anybody else being as qualified as I was, which, while a super prideful attitude, was probably objectively true at the time. I had yet to learn that know-how does not really equate to ability to teach or mobilize others; not by a long shot.

At some point, I remember sitting in the car with Danny outside of a bookstore. I had been bitterly complaining, sharing my thoughts about this situation. Most of these thoughts centered on me not believing that my calling could be inspired from God. That thought was deeply disturbing to me. I still felt like my church leaders were inspired, but it felt like for the "lesser" callings, they were just getting warm bodies. Also, the reasons given for why I was not given the calling I wanted was unacceptable to me.

Our Stake President moved and Bishop Morales became the Stake President, and Bishop Pack was called as my bishop. I was called to serve in a second and very obscure position in the ward: "Sunday School Teacher - Teacher Council Facilitator." Every time I tried to do something, it didn't work. None of my plans to help create better, more effective teaching in my ward worked. I definitely had a lot of know-how, but I couldn't do anything. It was a sucky feeling.

And suddenly, there were some massive, massive changes to everything at church because President Monson died and President Nelson became the prophet. There was so much change. A new way of approaching church was rolled out. We were supposed to have a "home-centered, church-supported" church experience. The church provided us with these really great teaching tools for implementing a much more relaxed kind of religious education experience in our homes. The entire idea is to focus on the individual person. The teacher council remains a thing, but basically - church time was cut by 30%, church programs like YW were made to be bi-weekly instead of every week, and the plan for me to somehow help teach the ward teachers to be better was subsumed in this bigger, much, much better plan to help the entire church be better. To me, this felt deeply personal. Like, it was as if God was trying to tell me individually, "Your plan is on the right track. You understand the goal. But I have a much better way of getting there. Let me show you."

At some point, I was released from the Young Women's Presidency, and later as this Sunday school teacher. And at some other point (sorry that I am bad with remembering the details) I was given the calling of Ward Temple and Family History Consultant - Lead. I was elated. This time, I would do even better. I would show "them" all that I should have had this calling all along. I was going to do great things...

...but none of my efforts worked, just like with my other "failed" calling of Teacher Council Facilitator. Literally everything I tried failed. People didn't listen to me. I wondered if people were just tired of hearing me beat the same drum, or play the same few notes on the piano. The church had made massive organizational changes so that now, there was no space to meet with people one on one at the church with a computer to do family history with them during second hour. Temple and Family History had been organized under the direction of the High Priest Group Leader, but suddenly, there was no more High Priest's Group (a big change made by President Nelson). For about six months, Temple and Family History Consultants were "rogue." We didn't have a leadership pattern to follow. We didn't report to anyone, and we just did our best to keep following the basically uninformed goals of the members, or our own ideas about what we should be doing. I felt kind of sick about it. I didn't like it. To me, it felt like I was supposed to both make a plan and implement it, single-handedly, but whilst being burdened with the implicit limitations of being a really big nerd, a really overenthusiastic person, and not having any kind of authority to make decisions about holding meetings, making changes, or doing stuff like that. It was crappy.

I remember that at some point, I just felt like giving up. I would help people who came to me with help (I'd get a phone call about two or three times a month from someone about family history), but I just stopped going out of my way to help others. I tried to attend these bi-weekly meetups that my ward was trying to do, but the attendance there was pitifully low, sometimes just me and the hosts. Or if I was the host, sometimes just me. It was beyond discouraging.

Then, something horrible happened.

I attended RootsTech 2019 and a new Temple and Family History Leadership Instruction was "unrolled." There were numerous things about this meeting that I disliked, but I will not dwell on all of them. Basically: we were given some new instructions.

Wards and branches were to create a Ward Temple and Family History Plan in their ward/branch councils (a member of each auxiliary attends this, plus the bishopric, plus some other people; it's pretty small).

A Ward Temple and Family History Coordination Meeting should be held "regularly." Sometimes, this could mean a giant group text, rather than an in-person meeting. This meeting is for Ward Temple and Family History Consultants, plus a couple other specific people (which I'll talk about in a little bit). The point of the meeting is to coordinate efforts to implement the Ward Temple and Family History Plan.

Finally, the bishop was to pick one of four patterns of leadership for the ward, the first one being strongly suggested. I've listed them in order of who reports to whom.

1.
Ward Temple and Family History Consultants
Ward Temple and Family History Leader
Counselor in the Elder's Quorum Presidency
Elder's Quorum President
Bishop/Branch President

2.
Ward Temple and Family History Consultants
Counselor in the Elder's Quorum Presidency
Elder's Quorum President
Bishop/Branch President

3.
Ward Temple and Family History Consultants
Elder's Quorum President
Bishop/Branch President

4.
Ward Temple and Family History Consultants
Bishop/Branch President

The advice was for the bishop or branch president to pick one and NOT KEEP IT A SECRET. You laugh, but, that has been a big problem, actually!

What bothered me deeply was that this new calling named "Ward Temple and Family History Leader" was a priesthood calling. The fact that it was a priesthood calling was not what bothered me, at least, not most.

During the meeting at RootsTech I was sitting with my friend Kami, who I hadn't seen in ages, and another ward temple and family history consultant from my ward, Gigi. I was trying to figure out if that was or was not a priesthood calling. I couldn't. At the end of the session, I marched up to the front of the auditorium (a giant ballroom with at least 500 people in it) and literally pushed my way to the front to talk to the speaker, who was some member of some seventy. I do not remember his name. He almost didn't answer my question, but I basically shouted at him that I needed him to answer me. My question was, "Is the 'Ward Temple and Family History Leader' a priesthood calling?" He said yes. He could not tell me why, except that it was what the First Presidency had prayed about and felt inspired to do. Then he left before he was swarmed by a huge number of other people with questions. It seemed like very few other people were as visibly concerned about this issue as I was.

I was really, really upset. Did this mean that I was being automatically released again? Did the fact that I am a woman disqualify me from serving? If so, why? If I wouldn't know why - still, what was expected of me next? Why didn't they acknowledge that likely over 80% of the people in the church with the calling of "Ward Temple and Family History Consultant - Lead" had been women? Why weren't we ever even given some kind of tacit acknowledgement for our service?

This basically ruined my trip.

I tried to talk about it with my in laws, but that didn't work. Do you know how many words it takes to explain something like this to someone else? They did not understand or relate to my feelings, and their reaction was unhelpful. I felt like nobody understood or cared about my feelings, logic, previous service, or just basically, me at all. Danny tried, but he couldn't give me any kind of guidance about what to do next.

I made an appointment to meet with my bishop. I knew that his time is limited, and so I wanted to go into our meeting with organized thoughts. I didn't want my emotions to rule the conversation, and then get nothing resolved. I sat down and created a giant flowchart of my thoughts and feelings. It was...very large. It helped me a lot. In the end, it boiled down to this question, "What is expected of me now? What is my role?"

My bishop was not very understanding at first. He looked at my spreadsheet but, for the second time, I felt like I was being scolded for asking questions. This is deeply against my personal values. I am not in this church because of coercion or being a lemming. I very deeply value asking questions and having my answers taken seriously, even if I don't always get straightforward answers from leaders. I know for sure, without any doubt, that the only one who can give perfect answers to my questions is God.

By the way, I spent a lot of time fasting and praying about this, too. I was also reading my scriptures in depth.

So yeah, my bishop was not very happy with my attitude. He was frustrated. He did listen to me, though. Bishop Pack and I have the same kind of outgoing, trying to please others personality. To see him so visibly upset about my attitude, to see him worry about my faith - which, to me, was not really the issue at hand - this probably was an important part to what happened next.

While reading my scriptures, I stumbled across the Old Testament story of Naaman. To sum up this story, basically there was this powerful leader named Naaman who got sick with leprosy. He believed the prophet Elisha could heal him by the power of God. He tried to ask Elisha what to do, but Elisha sends a letter telling him to go bathe in the river Jordan seven times. Naaman is super pissed off at the way Elisha tells him - how dare he not even come outside to meet him, how dare he send a letter, isn't this disrespectful! Naaman almost refuses to follow this counsel, but one of Naaman's servants convinces him to just try it anyway. So he does and is healed.

The point of the story for me was that the way the revelation is disseminated may have been really distasteful (mostly, I feel like it is a reflection on a broad level sexism that exists in my culture that is not specific to just my church), but that does not invalidate the revelation itself. That was the exact message I needed to hear at the time.

My bishop had scheduled to talk with me again, and when we did, I explained to him what I had learned. I still didn't really understand some things about this change. I was mostly concerned about the real, practical implications for me. I wanted to know what was expected of me. In this second meeting, we talked a bit more about what I was to do. Basically, "wait for the ward council to develop the plan." We were to follow pattern #2, the one without a designated "Ward Temple and Family History Leader." I was also given the explicit assignment to be the "leader" of the Ward Temple and Family History Consultants. Bishop had talked about it with President Morales, and they were both united on that.

So, yeah. I was the "leader" but still, without a voice on the ward council, what could I do? I was to implement a non-existent plan.

Danny had been worried sick about me, my faith, and my feelings. He tried very hard to be supportive, but it was not easy for him to understand all the emotions going around in my mind and heart. A lot of them were deeply bitter and cynical, but I think not exactly in the way that Danny thought. I still held a lot of doubt about whether or not my calling could be from God, even though I had already had a powerful lesson about callings with my other super weird teacher-teacher calling. Finally, one day I just explained to him the feelings of my heart. I explained through tears that I felt that I had done as much as I felt I could do, and I felt like the lesson that I had learned was that God is in charge of my calling, even though I didn't really get it. I felt like my lesson had been to admit that all my plans to be the best consultant ever, to just light a fire under my ward and have us all become super enthusiastic and effective at family history, that my desire to do things my way - all those things were not really the right way to approach this problem. I told Danny that I felt like I'd learned it, and now that I'd learned it, I was waiting to be released, since apparently I was good for nothing, useless, and ineffective in this calling.

The next day, I was asked to meet for an interview with a member of the Stake Presidency, and oh, yeah, you can bring your husband with you.

Those are code words for you are going to get a stake level calling.

Well, sort of. I was actually worried about it. I had given my spreadsheet to Bishop Pack. Maybe the Stake Presidency wanted to talk about it with me, too. But I was over those feelings. I didn't really want to rehash them again.

I figured that it was most likely a calling, though. I thought about it. Stake level callings for women are about a 60% possibility of being in some kind of presidency, a 30% possibility of being in something obscure like a Self Reliance Group Facilitator, and then there's always the 10% chance of something else unexpected. The interview was going to be a week later. I had to wait.

It was a really, really long week.

Danny and I went to the interview. President Helton asked if I was serving in any callings. I said I was a Ward Temple and Family History Consultant. He looked so visibly relieved after I said that. He told me that they would like to extend the call to me to serve as a Stake Temple and Family History Consultant "chair." I thought, "Hmm...I think that's...not a thing." I looked at him, puzzled. He said, "The Family History Center Director. Brother and Sister Newman are moving to Mississippi, and we want you to replace her."

Well, of course I said yes. It would be another two weeks until I'd be officially called (the calling announced in church) and set apart (given a priesthood blessing by the laying on of hands with specific direction and guidance for the calling. This is done for every calling in the church, from Prophet to nursery worker).

The line of authority goes like this:

Stake Temple and Family History Consultant
High Counselor over Temple and Family History
Stake Presidency

This means that suddenly, I will have the power to do stuff.

That day, I tried really hard to find out what the heck a Stake Temple and Family History Consultant "Chair" does. I quickly found out that the real name is simply: "Stake Temple and Family History Consultant" but that I also have an additional "title" in the church's online system (which is a headache) and that is "Stake Temple and Family History Consultant - Family History Center."

To me, this is a little bit of an inside joke. I feel like the words and phrases used in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hahaha) keep getting increasingly multi-syllabic. I never expected to have a longer calling title than Sunday School Teacher - Teacher Council Facilitator. Well. I was wrong. Makes me wonder what my next calling will have to be to beat it...hahaha.

President Helton told me they still hadn't called the new High Counselor, and they were all going to be reassigned duties, so he didn't know yet who would be over Temple and Family History. He told me to just wait until I was set apart and then I'd find out soon thereafter.

I called Sister Newman, who is a dear friend of mine. My first round of being a family history consultant, I would go to the center every week. I met some really great people there, including a patron who was not a member (about half of them are not) who was looking for his Czech ancestors. I helped him find his village of origin, and later he was able to visit it. We are still friends, and he and his wife are great people. Anyway. Sister Newman is also a great person. I really love her, and will miss her. I talked with her at length about my role as a Stake Temple and Family History Consultant. We arranged to meet yesterday evening after I was set apart.

I discovered from Sister Newman that the Des Moines - Mt. Pisgah Stake does not have its own Family History Center. They use ours. So I invited their Stake Temple and Family History Consultant to come to our meeting. The center is about a 25 minute drive from my house.

I was set apart. My bishop was thrilled to see me. Honestly, I think I was a little bit awkward. I am often awkward. I try but sometimes I don't know another way to be that is also genuine, and genuineness always wins out for me, I guess. Brother Cox and Bishop Pack laid their hands on my head and set me apart. Brother Cox gave the blessing, and it was really good. I wrote it down later. I asked bishop if he knew how my name came up. He said he didn't really. Neither had President Helton. The blessing promised me I would learn that information.

On my way to the meeting, I got a call from Brother Billings. He is the high counselor over Temple and Family History. I invited him to come to our meeting, and he did.

The meeting was the best meeting I have ever had with anyone in the church.

Ever.

We were all exactly on the same page. Sister Rich, Sister Newman, and Brother Billings are highly competent people. We discussed our plan moving forward. Brother Billings had some advice from the Area Authority over Temple and Family History, which is one level up from the Stake. They told him that, essentially, his job is to motivate the Ward Temple and Family History Leaders, counselors in the EQ Presidency, counselors in the RS Presidency (who also attend the Ward Temple and Family History Coordination Meetings), EQ and RS Presidents, and bishops/branch presidents, while my role is to be the toolbox. Give them the tools they need.

The fact is, the church is moving away from a top-down approach to a lot of things, including Temple and Family History. It is supposed to be a ward level approach, with the importance and emphasis on the individual rather than on numbers and programs. Here's the updated guidelines to what Handbook 2 has to say about my role:

If the stake has a family history center, these leaders assign consultants to serve as staff members there as requested by the stake temple and family history consultant.

The stake presidency may assign one or more high councilors to train the ward temple and family history leader (if called; see 5.4.1) and members of the elders quorum and Relief Society presidencies who lead temple and family history work. As needed, these high councilors also coordinate the stake’s efforts in FamilySearch indexing and at family history centers. They may be assisted by a stake temple and family history consultant.


Family History Centers

Some stakes have family history centers, which exist primarily to help Church members identify their ancestral family members and provide temple ordinances for them. Community patrons are also welcome to use the resources at family history centers.

These centers provide access to the Church’s microfilmed family history records, to family history computer and Internet resources such as FamilySearch, and to training on how to do family history work.

Basically, there's really just one job that I have: "help assist the high councilor/stake presidency." That is a big, big change from how things were in the past, when there weren't even ward-level consultants.

The promise is that as we implement these changes, the Lord will hasten his work on both sides of the veil and we will be blessed in the process. I know that's true.

I asked Brother Billings if he knew how they had decided to call me to this calling. He said that yes, my bishop had recommended me. As he had been thinking and praying about it, my name was strongly and obviously the right one. He knew it must be inspired because the feelings he had were strong, and we have never met before. He didn't even know what I look like. I am not the obvious choice for this calling because I live far away and have 5 children ages 1-10 - actually, those things make me a very bad choice for this calling. Sister Rich suggested that maybe they should call two people to take on the role of running the center, since that is a really big role and the other role of helping train the consultants is deeply necessary and takes all her time. I learned in the meeting that she is actually not in charge of the center, though she has been helping to step up because Sister Newman was unable to do some things since her father had been dying and she had been taking care of him.

But no, the key belongs to me. Literally. I have the key, all the passwords, and I am now the sys admin of a very small computer lab in Des Moines that is dedicated to the most important work that exists on the earth today. 

They also decided to not release me as a Ward Temple and Family History Consultant. Between the time when I was issued my Stake Temple and Family History Consultant calling and was actually set apart, my ward had another one of these Family History "meetups" at the Clawson's house. Sister Clawson is the Relief Society Counselor over Temple and Family History, and Brother Clawson is the Elder's Quorum Counselor over Temple and Family History, so that simplifies things.

There were about 20 people there, and it was extremely successful. Everybody was engaged. Everybody had someone to help someone else. Multiple people had life-changing experiences. People found their ancestors. I talked at length with Brother Clawson about the Ward Temple and Family History Plan. He is a computer programmer, and we get along really well. He knows how to get things done and work with people. He's also been a bishop before, so he understands how some of these stupid bureaucratic things work. He is attending the Ward Council and getting them to create the plan (really, more like, approve the plan that he and I created and that he pared down to be 2 or 3 lines). He and his wife are a real joy to work with in the ward. 

The clear message to me in all this is that I can be successful at my calling. God wants me to be. I need to continue to rely on him, because his hand is right there, in the very small details of my life. The timing of all these things is too good to be a coincidence. I suppose a cynic would disagree, but I think that'd mostly be because you haven't walked in my shoes or experienced it firsthand. Brother Billings, who is a practical, businesslike, efficient Middle School Principal, telling me, "Yeah, I just got this really strong feeling like I needed to call you right now, but I was saying to myself, 'no, no, she was only just called today...' But I'm so glad I did, so that I could attend this meeting!"

If things hadn't lined up the way they had, I would not have had as strong/firm an understanding of God's hand in the importance of the changes in this work. I guess I needed to live the contrast a little bit in order to understand the new changes. I was looking at it the wrong way: the Ward Temple and Family History Leader does not replace the Ward Temple and Family History Consultant - Lead, but the High Priest Group Leader. Organizing the ward in the new way means that the consultants, who are usually kind of quirky, reserved, or otherwise weird - not the best people people - will get to focus on implementing the plan, and not creating/cheer-leading it, too. Giving the ward council the responsibility to create the plan and giving the priesthood leaders clear roles in implementing it really is inspired. It will work better. God knows better than me how to lead this church, and my job is to do my absolute best to try to follow.

I am VERY happy about this new calling, about the people I work with, and about the future of Temple and Family History in both my ward and the church as a whole. This is likely to be one of the most influential callings over the most people that I will ever have in my entire life.

It feels like God is telling me that I did a good job learning what I was supposed to learn, and that he trusts me to help with his work. There is not much else that can compare to that feeling, except the additional sweet feeling that he cares about the small details that are just sometimes too hard to explain to others. The things that are too long to write about or discuss, or for which I struggle to assign words. It matters a lot to me that my God knows me, and cares enough about me to make that known. I feel doubtful that this message will have any kind of the deep and personal meaning to anybody reading this that it does to me, and that makes me feel a little bit frustrated. I wish I could explain my heart better. I know there will be typos, too...earugh...

I was able to bear my testimony to these three people in this meeting. It was one of the most genuine testimonies I have every born in my life. I'll echo it a little bit here: I know that Jesus Christ leads the church, that my calling is inspired from God, and that God knows me and loves me. This is the best feeling there is.