Well, it went OK at the program practice/quarterly activity last night. I arrived early, set up a couple tables in the gym, then left to get the pizzas from Little Caesar's. When I got back I set up the food while they prayed in the chapel, then they came running, and ate on the gym floor. One teacher brought her two teenagers and a couple of their friends, and they helped themselves too, so I'm afraid some of us went home hungry, including some of the older primary kids. I felt kind of bad, but there was no way I was going to let those other kids go hungry either, just because their mom didn't feed them before they came.
I told them to get started while I cleaned up, then I had to go into the chapel and wait. I had to wait to serve the Otter pops for dessert after the practice, kind of the carrot we dangled if they'd get through the entire practice well. So I sat up in the front left pew watching when about halfway through, the other counselor came to me and said, "You don't know, do you, that you have a seat up in the seats with the kids? You haven't really been here for a practice." So I had to grab the program copy and find my chair with my name on it. Funny enough, my seat was smack dab in the middle of all the other inactive (ha ha) kids. That's gonna leave a funny hole this Sunday. I was tempted to tell her to fill my row with the kids sitting in chairs in front of the podium, since I won't be there.
Anyway, I'm sitting there singing when they sang because the president was standing down there watching me, and I saw that my daughter's part was coming up ~ she was to have gotten up to stand up front with three others just before her turn to speak. Suddenly the other counselor comes up to me and said, "Where's S.? Still sick?" I just smiled and shrugged kind of like "Whatya do?" and didn't answer her really. She walked away. Funny how it was already more than an hour into the activity and she JUST NOTICED my daughter wasn't there. Sigh.
My son ended up going to YM ~ it was a 3 ward combined activity service scavenger hunt. I was sitting on the stage waiting for him to finish playing basketball with a friend, when I heard one girl say to her dad beside me, "That's so cheap! We did all that work on our scavenger hunt, and they gave out no prizes!" The dad said, "Yes they did, didn't you hear? The winning team got their ice cream sundae first before anyone else." The look on her face was priceless. I had to inject my opinion then, I couldn't help myself. "You'd think, wouldn't you, that with three whole wards of both YM and YW leaders, someone could have at least thought up a prize better than that, even a candy bar for each winner or anything rather than nothing."
What's more likely is that someone in charge figured, this is a SERVICE PROJECT scavenger hunt. (They had to go to members' homes and do one of a number of services on the page for a certain amount of points.) I'm guessing someone thought, is it really service if they've gotten rewarded for doing it?? Shaking my head. Those poor kids were JIPPED.
It was a little strange knowing that the activity was the last time I'd be doing anything calling-wise forever. I'm done. It would have been nice having someone know it while I was doing it. Felt a little sneaky, which isn't really something I enjoy. I had a few comments from teachers, "I haven't SEEN you in a long time!" Little do they know.....
My worry is that this Sunday or next Sunday (if he doesn't go this Sunday) people will dig for information from my son if he continues to go to church without me. Sigh. I'm not sure this will happen but I think there's a good chance. My husband and I are wanting this to not happen, and feel the best scenario is J. not going to church, yet I've told him he has the freedom to choose. However, since I told him the things I know about the church which led me to disbelieve it, he hasn't made any comments or asked any questions. So we warned him we'd be talking about it in depth this weekend, and to be ready with any comments or questions. (Without the crying this time, thank GOD for Aunt Flo's timely arrival!) I know, TMI! I haven't used that dumb phrase since high school! Hopefully he'll get the chance to see some of what I've read, especially about the Book of Abraham and the Egyptian funeral texts, and also stuff from Brigham Young in the Journal of Discourses. We'll see how it goes.
I think my husband has no clue how the church works, and he doesn't understand my angst over what will they do next, if anything. I told them I worry that we'll be the first people on their list for monthly visits to inactives...one night a month the entire ward auxiliary leaders get together and choose who's visiting whom, and then they come back and report afterward. You can bet that my kids or I will be first on their list, because it's a lot easier to knock on the door of people you know than it is people you don't know. And they know us. Therefore, we've decided my letter to the bishop won't be as simple as I'd previously planned. I'm going to draft that next.
Sigh. I wish I didn't have to do it this way, but I see no alternative. Why can't I just do something easier like move to another state?
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