First Calling

Alice has just begun her first church calling/responsibility. We were chatting about how this is a first for her and Robert piped up, "It's the first calling for ANY of the kids in this family EVER!!"

'Tis the joy and burden of being the eldest, I'm afraid.

Our church congregation is small enough that there are maybe a dozen girls between the ages of 12 and 17 years old, so they are all grouped together for lessons and activities. Alice has been attending since January and LOVED every minute of it.

She has accepted a call to be the president of this Young Women's class. It came as a humbling, eye-popping surprise to all of us. Alice was especially astonished. She prayerfully considered which girls to ask to serve in the presidency with her, she consulted with the bishop, and decided on 3 girls in particular. All of them accepted the calls and they were sustained and set apart yesterday on Easter Sunday.

I found myself in a strange spot, emotionally...

Of course she's capable of this.

Of course she's way too young and inexperienced and anxious to do this.

I'm amazed at her willingness to try.

I'm scared she doesn't know how difficult a calling like this can be.

But maybe it won't be difficult for her. Maybe she'll fit right in planning activities and visiting new girls and leading meetings and working closely with the adults and being up in front of other people. That's all stuff Alice has liked in the past...all stuff that I struggle with, not her...maybe I'm worrying for nothing...yeah, I'm going to cool my jets a bit and watch this girl do her thing.

Alice has been under a lot of stress lately learning things about herself, trying to make big decisions, and working on some big school projects. I wish I could talk about them here in detail and figure out how/what I think/feel about them, but they are not my stories to tell any more. She is coming into her own and I need to respect her privacy. Feel free to ask her how things are going, though. She's talkative enough and will share whatever is on her mind :)

Climbing trees at Orchard Downs

Easter photo in front of our flowers. What the heck is Matthew doing? I don't know. But at least James is finally smiling for realsies.

Selfie-majig. Where's Robert? I don't know. But it's a pretty natural picture of Alice.