All Good Things Come to an End

(This was a little flower arrangement/thank you gift I was given on Sunday)

Last week, on March 21, 2010 I was released as being the Relief Society president in our ward. I served as the RS president for 13 months. The last couple of weeks have been bittersweet. I knew almost a week before I was released that it was coming. What a week of highs and lows. One minute I would be relieved that this would "probably be the last time" this or that and the next minute I was in tears over it. I learned a lot serving in this capacity. Almost every opportunity was a growing experience for me. And I think I am a better person for it. I liken it to being a sort of a bootcamp for me. I changed a lot in a relatively short time and had to face a lot of fears that I probably never would have if I were not given this opportunity. And, of course, I got to know people in ways that I know I never would have.

So last Sunday, I was released and a new, wonderful sister was sustained. The next day, she and I called a meeting and I got her up-to-speed the best I could. That day, I received a few phone calls from sisters with problems, sisters that didn't know the change had happened. Over the next couple days, I received a few more emails. And then the word seemed to be out and that was that. How quickly life moves on.

We have three months left here in Germany. I am promised that I will be given another church job to serve in until we leave. Just not one that takes so much time and carries quite so much burden. The timing is good...actually the timing is great. Truth be told, I thought I would be serving for another month so it came as somewhat of a surprise to me. We are about to go on a long vacation and then once we get back we are going to jump into full "moving mode" and start going through all of our stuff. Just this afternoon, we received our moving orders so now we can start scheduling all the moving stuff, once we return home . But we are hoping to ship out our things before Memorial Day. That leaves just over a month to get our house in order once we come back from vacation. That's not a lot of time! Once our house is empty, we will bring in Army loaner furniture and live another month in our house. We'll check into a hotel a couple miles down the street from our home at the end of June and start working on returning our house to our landlady. It has to be in tip-top shape. Rental laws are quite different here. I'm sure I'll post more about this later on.

Until later,

Emily