I’m struggling more and more having any type of kind feelings toward my Relief Society President. Last December she approached me and asked me if Visiting Teaching ‘was even something I wanted to do?’ I was shocked at first, but then gathered myself and realized when we first moved to this ward I had asked to be taken off the VT list.  My husband was working heavily out of town and I had very young children and visiting teaching was just one more thing I didn’t want, nor had the energy to do.  After a second of thought I told her that things were really stressful for me at that time, so it might be better if she just takes me off again. I can’t remember everything that was said, but she basically told me 1. they only _wanted_ sisters that were actually going to do their VT and after I said take me off the list she said 2. It is building the kingdom of God and we should all do our part.

Ya because raising four children isn’t doing any of that.

I was so mad I about bit my husbands head clean off when I got home from church. I drove to the VT coordinators house (cried) and then told her I’m not doing it right now and that she would just have to deal with that.

Emotional manipulation doesn’t work well with me especially when they try to guilt me into ‘doing my part to further the kingdom of God.’  Screw that!

Sunday, the lesson was on Faith. The teacher began the lesson asking questions about faith and what faith means to us. She had about 7 pictures displayed of Faith promoting stories from the scriptures. All were male. Then she asked the class if there was a particular faith related story from the scriptures that we identified with. Most of the sisters that commented picked male faith promoting stories. I sat there, racked my brain thinking–there has to be some woman in the scriptures that did something amazing and why can’t I think of it right now?  Just then the 2nd counselor in the RS presidency mentioned a lady from the New Testament. It was the lady that had the disease of the blood. She knew that if she could just touch the Saviors robe she would be healed. She did, the Savior noticed and sought her out. I sighed inside and thought, yes, thank you for reminding me of her . Then I pulled out my trusty smart phone and googled more woman of faith in the scriptures and was reminded that there were so many more that are rarely spoken about.

After this little part of discussion the teacher then showed a clip/movie that the church made of John Rowe Moyle, He was a stonemason that worked on the construction of the Salt Lake Temple. He was a pioneer, came west with a one of the first handcart companies, saw many hardships on the plains, settled in Alpine and walked 22 miles to Salt Lake every Monday morning and 22 miles back home every Friday. His wife was left to take care of the farm. He did this for over 20 years until one day, while he was milking his cow he got kicked in the leg. His leg was broken so bad that it had to be amputated. Once he healed he made himself a wooden stump and as soon as he was able began his trek back to work on the Salt Lake temple.

The sisters were all teary. I heard sniffles and saw many wipe at there eyes, and there I sat stone cold. I will not be emotionally manipulated by this pioneer story. I won’t. I won’t cry just because he decided to make himself a new leg and work on the temple. I won’t. (I’m suspecting that I felt this way because of all the conversation over at FMH about pioneer stories being used as emotional manipulation and I didn’t want to be suckered into it–by the way, it was a powerful story, just saying).

After the movie was over the teacher took that moment to ask us that ever Mormon question–do you have the strength to give up everything you have for the church?

I guffawed in my head. I sat there telling myself to shut it. Don’t say anything-this lesson isn’t for you. Don’t do it, don’t do it—

I raised my hand.

“See, the thing is,” I said, “we have to remember that we live in such a different time than these pioneers. We don’t have to walk 22 miles to build a temple. We don’t have to sacrifice what they had to sacrifice, and I think it’s important that we remember that. They sacrifice that they made were very physical. The church had just started up and needed every member to give up just about everything.  There are so many members of the Church now that the majority of us aren’t asked to sacrifice what they were asked to sacrifice. Our sacrifices are much smaller, but still as important. After you asked about Faith stories I googled woman of faith in the scriptures and was reminded of the stripling warriors mothers. Now, I don’t know the exact situation in that story, but I assume that the reason those stripling warriors were so amazing was because of the everyday things their mothers did to teach them. I don’t recall them being asked to give all of the possessions they own to build a temple, or cross the plains. I assume they taught the young men, by say-having family home evening-by reading the scriptures, by loving them, by showing them how to be disciples of Christ, by serving and loving their fellow (wo)men, and by having a relationship with Heavenly Father, and the Savior. I think it’s important for us to remember that the small things count too”.

Rant over–

RS President…… “yes, but we need to remember that there are still big sacrifices to be made, like indexing and temple work, and genealogy. There are still many BIG (emphasis) sacrifices that we all can make.

I clamped my mouth shut so quick… I had to stop myself from saying–if you are comparing sitting in your comfortable home, in your pj’s, at your computer indexing or doing genealogy work,  to walking 44 miles on a wooden leg a sacrifice we have some serious problems.

She’s an idiot.

Dying for the church/gospel is much easier than living for it.

I’m building the Lords kingdom and making sacrifices everyday of my life. Right now my biggest sacrifice is sharing my body with another human being. I also sacrifice/practice faith/build the kingdom of God by teaching my children to love, respect, serve, pray, have faith, question, listen, ponder, search out the meaning of the gospel and by all means do the best you can one day at a time. When my children make a mistake on purpose or accident I often tell them, ‘well let’s do better tomorrow, and I love you.’

Each day brings different challenges. I don’t do indexing, I don’t do genealogy, I don’t attend the temple as often as I should, I know I should pray more, read scriptures more, but today I’m doing the best I can with the tools I have and maybe I’ll be able to do better tomorrow….