Me? Relief Society President?

In my church we have "callings" or jobs.  These are not jobs that we get paid to do and oftentimes, they are not jobs that we would ever volunteer to do.  Nevertheless, for the most part, when we are asked, we accept the "callings" and do our best until we are "released" and someone else gets to do what you have been doing.

About two and a half weeks ago, I got the shock of my life.  I was called to be the new Relief Society President of our ward!  As far as the women go, there are 3 presidencies that you can be part of: Primary (which is over children, boys & girls up to the age of 12), Young Women's which encompasses girls ages 12-18 and then Relief Society which is for women ages 18 on up.  Besides the presidencies there are also lots and lots of teacher callings, musical positions and some others.  I guess it depends on how you look at it, but to me being the Relief Society president is the most intimidating calling because you are over your peers and also over people that are older, wiser, more experienced than you.  It also seems like Relief Society focuses on the families of the women, not just the women themselves.

Of course, I have two counselors (which I got to select) and other leadership "under" me that I will get to delegate to but it is a huge responsibility to have.  It all became official yesterday and this week I am starting to get my feet wet with what I have to do.  I'm going to have to play it all by ear.  The woman that I am replacing is married but without children and her husband was deployed for 15 months out of the 2 years that she served, oh and she worked (as in a paying job) only part-time.  So, she had a lot more time on her hands to fulfill this responsibility.  In other words, I'm going to have to do A LOT of things very differently than this wonderful woman was able to (I admire her, I think she did an awesome job, and I think I can do a good job, too, it's just going to have to be different!).

Until later,

Emily