Thursday, May 2, 2013

New Church calling for Gary

I am sure I have commented on this before, but we are so blessed to live in a Church which presents us with different opportunities to serve in a wide variety of ways.  One Tuesday afternoon, Gary took a phone call and then asked me if we were free for a visit on Wednesday or Thursday.  He didn't mention who it was.  I proceed to outline those days which included one of the conferences and I truly had little time to meet in the evenings.  Gary talked on the phone some more and then told me that they were going to try to have time on Sunday to visit.  "Who was it," I asked.  Gary then informed me that it was the State President who wanted to meet with us.  I don't know about you but I do not do well with waiting to talk to the Bishopric and certainly not the Stake President.  Whatever it is about I just want to know and move on.......waiting just breeds uncertainty and wondering.  I said call him right back and we will go tonight.  Gary laughed.  He loves watching me with this type of stuff.

As it turned out, the Stake President wanted to do it before Sunday so we fit a time in between my conference in Ogden and a meeting I had in Salt Lake.  Gary was called to be the Ward Clerk in our ward.  He has been a financial clerk before but never the ward clerk and he is discovering that it is more than he realized.  Part of that is because he is learning all about the Church's computer as he tries to make sure we are using it to it's potential.  He will be awesome and the ward will be as organized and up-to-date as possible.  He is meeting lots of our neighbors and he is trying to clean up and up-date the records.  He is there now cleaning out the clerk's office and trying to figure out what supplies they need and also updating the computer.  Apparently the virus software had been turned off and it was a big job to get it working correctly.  He is a good man.

One benefit was that we decided he needed a tablet.  We have had a touch pad by HP which we got cheap when they discontinued them but it doesn't have many Aps for it.  The tablet is amazing.  He got a keyboard so that he can take notes during meetings and he says it works great.  I borrowed it to use with my dad as we did genealogy last Monday and now I want one as well.  Like one of my friends said about her Ipad.  It is not a smart phone nor a laptop, it is something in the middle and you will wonder how you survived without it.  We shall see.  I am hoping to move completely to a computer calendar when I start using mine.

And by the way, he is still the Webelo leader and the Stake Employment Specialist although that will change in the near future we assume.  It will be really sad for him to not do Webelos.  I love having them come each week to our house for Webelos.  They have all been great kids.  They all try to arrive about 10 minutes early because Gary allows them in and they play pool and air hockey until time to start.  One of us has done scouts for most of the past 20 years and some of the years before that.  This will be a change for both of us.

Stake Employment specialist has been a good experience too.  As we face the real possibility that Gary may be laid off in the coming months, that calling has given him lots of information about handling a job search.  We have been so blessed in that Gary has been constantly employed since 1981 and there has been only 3 or 4 months of our entire married life that he didn't have a job (and even then he had part-time work to do).  In the computer industry with many ups and downs, that is amazing!

Like I mentioned, callings are such a blessing!

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