Yeah - I had 4 cookies after dinner last night.

I was talking to my mom on Friday about aspects of this churchy job that, frankly, I'm pretty sure no one would believe to be true.  Mom and I mused that I should write a book about all of the insanity, but I'm reasonably sure an editor would tell me it is too far-fetched and s/he/it would ask me to add in a few winged beings, a wand or two, and try to classify my great autobiography as Fantasy.

I thought housing 5 kids while a gun-wielding father was hunting them down was out there. I thought consoling an active LDS, upstanding, trained athlete - along with her kids - hours after her husband was hauled off to the federal pen (and learning they'd been on the lam for nearly a year) was wild. There have been trips to unwed, teen girls who were going to give birth and dealing with the ward-wide-baby-shower insanity afterward, and a veeeeeery terse bishop.  At one time, we've had 3 folks dealing with cancer treatments in our ward all while dealing with another half dozen or so who are un-or-underemployed.  

There's been the drama of not one, but TWO different mothers who at 20-or-so weeks preggers - and with a houseful of other kids - have been on bedrest and want some Relief Society help. OH! Speaking of houses full of kids, there's the clearly insane mother of five who just went out and married a man 15 years her junior. They met in a gym and had only known one another for a WEEK.  The nuptials initiated her throwing her 70-year-old mother (who was our last RS President) out on the literal street.  Yup - she packed her mother's things in storage and for a time, would not tell her where the unit was.  (Mind you - the mother had moved in at the daughter's request year's ago and has given all of her money to the raising of the 5 children while the mother has never had regular employment.)

We've had late night moves and cries for casseroles.  We've had not one, not two, but 3 illegal alien families all looking for assistance from the church....while our Elder's Quorum President works as an immigration attorney deporting the bad guys.  (He's not technically a reporting agent, but he cannot have any contact with illegals.  Needless to say, we cannot tell HIM what is going on, and frankly, none of us wants to know, either.)

There's the mother telling me her husband won't LET her use church welfare - or any welfare - but they are starving. There's the mother telling me her son tried to kill them all recently, but he's getting married soon and she doesn't want to wreck the nuptials by having him Bakker acted.  Of course, the mother is not invited to the nuptials because she lost her ever-loving mind and went nutters  on him.  Let's see....oh...same son pretends he passes the bar to members of the ward, but meanwhile, he still hasn't and went ballistic on his boss to keep his job after flunk numbers 5 and 6...and since the boss is a member of the church, he wants some sort of "action" taken on the man should he finally be let go.

You get the picture. This calling is INSANE!  And, methinks, so are many members of my ward.

I remember being unimpressed by a President in the past who would leave me snarky messages after 1.0 was born.  She would say, "If you do not call me back soon and tell me how you are, I canNOT help you!"

Mind you - I wasn't asking for help. And during this time, we had no cell phone and I pretty much lived at the hospital for 7 weeks.  

I remember being unimpressed by a RS Presidency who, when making a quilt of all the sisters in the ward, had not included me...and when they asked us to mention if we didn't see our names on the quilt (and I got up the nerve to say something)...I was asked, "Ok - who are you?"

I'd only been in the ward about 9 months.  Serving faithfully in Primary.

I remember having lackluster thoughts about a Presidency that put on the most awful Enrichment meetings I have ever been to in my life. Seriously - these were baaaad folks. I wondered why only 5 or so of us went my first venture out...then I got it.

You know what. I would like to formally repent. Those women were ROCK STARS! Kudos to them for what they managed to do!  Blessings on their heads!

Last week, I had 2 sisters in the hospital and I never made it. My kid got a fever and I couldn't get there. I explained it to them both - but one had that, "Oh yeah - really - don't bother" kind of look in her eyes about my apologies. And I thought to myself, "Giiiiiiiiirl - I get that!  I get that you think I'm a loser. But last week, I spent an hour on the phone trying to convince an illegal that Venezuela isn't all bad and really, the church can't aid and abet illegals...you know...without ME going to jail."  But I couldn't very well say that, eh? So I smiled and apologized and nodded and listened and let her pass some judgement.

It used to be the judgement bothered me. But someday - when they see my (names-changed-to-protect-the guilty) accounting of all of this on the Barnes and Noble bestseller's rack, they'll get over it.

Right?

I hear people say, "Just quit! Tell them you can't do this anymore."  

Uh, those people are never Mormon.

Saying that is like telling a conservative Jew to not circumcise his son. Or like telling Siegfried and Roy to not wear glittery costumes.

So, my little Presidency marches on. We've got an (unapproved by the Stake President and our Bishopric) book club coming up and we just gave out cupcakes on Fast Sunday. I don't know what else it will take for us to get the axe. While these things seem like they should be alarming to our Bishop, perhaps they aren't..seeing as it is being compared in alarming status to the man and woman who are in the ward, unemployed, with cancer, and who are pretending to be married and active members...and who, apparently, aren't.

Oh - no more time for venting. Even as I type, I'm now receiving, what appears to be, an email campaign-flooding-of-my-inbox with complaints that I'm asking them to sign up on lds.org so our Presidency emails are generated in the proper site and done correctly.  

I know this church is true.

0_0

Whine, whine, whine, complain, complain, complain

(cue the soap opera music)

This week in....As the Ward Turns....

...one young family finds out stage 3 cancer has metastasized and is now stage 4.

...a family loses their home and is forced to move.

...a young mother miscarries the weekend her family is moving across the country.

...two more families lose their jobs.

...a mother of 5 (the oldest child in elementary school) learns she has Lupus.

...a woman who has a crisis of faith, and when I don't have time to listen as much as she'd like, she hangs up on me.

As Relief Society President, I find I am just not that sympathetic to random whining. Additionally, I find that this is a problem. 

Your husband is laid off - talk to me. You are ill - share.  You get headaches at church and have decided to take a couple of months off - maybe you should not try to get me to feel tremendous sympathy for that one.

I wrestle with this every week, and I've had so much patience and compassion extended to me throughout my life that I try to model that to others.  But I think the faces I am making are giving me away that I think some of this....is bunk.

In my church-y job, I hear a lot of sad things. Large portions of heartbreak with sides of doubt and shame are often on my weekly menu. I try to compartmentalize individual problems and not make comparisons. I know the pain that comes from having your struggle set up against another's and you hear, "Just think - it could be worse!  It could be like So-and-So's....."  I've done that and seen the hurt it causes - and I've been on the receiving end and thought, "Thanks for sharing - now put your head down."

The point being, I know better.

But I am about at my WIT'S END with a couple of gals in my ward who have decided that things are sooooooooooooo hard for them. They require inordinate amounts of attention and when I reflect on their "problems", it's hard for me to not shout, "Sis. Blah's husband is DYING - can we talk about your church headaches and how the three-hour-block is harder for you than everyone else because you are sensitive AND hypoglycemic later, please?"

I know that would be wrong, but it's a large temptation on my part.

Last night at the Ward Christmas Party, I was speaking with a sister who shared with that she is feeling overwhelmed.  Her husband loses his job at the end of December and she has 5 kids, and learned she was pregnant with baby number 6 when she went to get her tubes tied. Now, the little Wombie she is growing  is having issues and she's in fear of miscarrying, which is an emotional nightmare for her (she feels she's wished that child gone at times - and now it might happen.)  Her middle son was just diagnosed as Autistic and she's stressed out.

Duh.

As I was speaking with her, another woman (no Mom - not THAT one) was waiting to talk to me.  Sis. Overwhelmed let me go saying something like, "I need to quit bending your ear - Sis. Eager is waiting to speak to you."

I turn to Sis. Eager who wants to share with me how I can better decorate for the Ward Christmas party and how she'd like me to let someone know that we should not have as much food at church functions. Also, she feels there should be more focus on service at church activities and women who have had multiple children should not be receiving baby showers. These things have been on her mind and she needs to get them off her chest as she is no longer enjoying church on Sunday and has thought about not coming back because of it.

Aaaaaaaaalrighty then.

So talk to me, Good Peeps. How do I make every sister feel like she can share and she has support - but at the same time - help folks to see that there is a bigger picture and maybe, their dramas shouldn't be as overwhelming as they have let them become? So far, I've tried:

• explaining that life is meant to be a time of growth and learning, not of pedicures and spa visits.
  
• helping them understand that real life doesn't look like TV.
  
• encouraging them to serve others so they have a clearer perspective of what real problems are.
  
• setting them up as Visiting Teachers of sisters who are having a hard time (that went over like a lead balloon and is another post all its own.)
  
• telling them, nicely, to knock it off.
  
• giving their problems lots of attention so they feel better.  BIG MISTAKE
• praying for them.
• practicing inner eye-rolling but otherwise, plastering on the Look of Concern I was issued when I took over this job.

Help?