Is the amount of time a man serves as bishop arbitrary or is 5 years standard (and mandatory)?
Background: We are currently living in an area that we never intended on staying in for more than about 3-4 years. It's now been 10 1/2! My husband has a good secure job but this city, even after 10 years doesn't feel like home to me. I really want to move back closer to our extended family. (4 states and 1300 miles away) Half of our children don't recognize their cousins in pictures. They only have one grandmother left and it looks like she'll be spending all of 48 hours with us in June. No other immediate prospects to see her.
We have been job searching for years. My husband is in a rather tight career box and there are very few opportunites in his expertise in what we call our "home" area. About a year ago he was called as bishop. I agreed to support him in his calling as long as he didn't quit looking for jobs back home. I think the most important thing for us is family realtionships and they have suffered by us being 1300 miles away. WE are always the ones to make that journey to see them and I'm getting tired of always being the visitor, always being the one to use our vacation time to go see them rather than going somewhere else fun (like they do). We invite them all to come to see us every year but visits are extremely rare despite our best efforts to entertain, feed and love them. My husband agrees with my feelings about it...sort of. I think he does in principle but not so much in practice. I think he feels like extended family relationships are a bit tiresome. He is much more independent than I am. He likes where he is and what he is doing. We have some friends but they are all rather superficial relationships. It's an area where people come and go a lot - very transient. So maybe we haven't worked all that hard at developing freindships that could take the place of family support.
So now a job opportunity- not a perfect one but a really good one with great benefits and pay, has come up. It's not right in our home town but a 3 1/2 hour drive away ( closer than 23 hour drive or a $400 dollar plane ticket away!!) I'm a bit unsure about the location just because I have never been there but genereally I feel OK about it and about doing my job as a stay at home mom there. He all but has a job offer in hand. But now he is feeling guilty about even considering it. The stake president has told my husband on a couple of occasions that he is the one to be bishop of this ward right now. Pray and pray as I might, I don't get that same confirmation. I think he is doing a good job, we have had some sweet experiences, but I have never felt like he is the only one that can do this job as bishop in this ward right now. If anything I get stronger feelings that it's time to reconnect with our family.
So is it just bad form, selfish, lack of faith, putting our eternal salvation in peril to leave a job as bishop after only a year? Do you think extended family relationships trump church callings?
wife of the bishop
in Advice Board
Posted
Is the amount of time a man serves as bishop arbitrary or is 5 years standard (and mandatory)?
Background: We are currently living in an area that we never intended on staying in for more than about 3-4 years. It's now been 10 1/2! My husband has a good secure job but this city, even after 10 years doesn't feel like home to me. I really want to move back closer to our extended family. (4 states and 1300 miles away) Half of our children don't recognize their cousins in pictures. They only have one grandmother left and it looks like she'll be spending all of 48 hours with us in June.
No other immediate prospects to see her.
We have been job searching for years. My husband is in a rather tight career box and there are very few opportunites in his expertise in what we call our "home" area. About a year ago he was called as bishop. I agreed to support him in his calling as long as he didn't quit looking for jobs back home. I think the most important thing for us is family realtionships and they have suffered by us being 1300 miles away. WE are always the ones to make that journey to see them and I'm getting tired of always being the visitor, always being the one to use our vacation time to go see them rather than going somewhere else fun (like they do). We invite them all to come to see us every year but visits are extremely rare despite our best efforts to entertain, feed and love them. My husband agrees with my feelings about it...sort of. I think he does in principle but not so much in practice. I think he feels like extended family relationships are a bit tiresome. He is much more independent than I am. He likes where he is and what he is doing. We have some friends but they are all rather superficial relationships. It's an area where people come and go a lot - very transient. So maybe we haven't worked all that hard at developing freindships that could take the place of family support.
So now a job opportunity- not a perfect one but a really good one with great benefits and pay, has come up. It's not right in our home town but a 3 1/2 hour drive away ( closer than 23 hour drive or a $400 dollar plane ticket away!!) I'm a bit unsure about the location just because I have never been there but genereally I feel OK about it and about doing my job as a stay at home mom there. He all but has a job offer in hand. But now he is feeling guilty about even considering it. The stake president has told my husband on a couple of occasions that he is the one to be bishop of this ward right now. Pray and pray as I might, I don't get that same confirmation. I think he is doing a good job, we have had some sweet experiences, but I have never felt like he is the only one that can do this job as bishop in this ward right now. If anything I get stronger feelings that it's time to reconnect with our family.
So is it just bad form, selfish, lack of faith, putting our eternal salvation in peril to leave a job as bishop after only a year? Do you think extended family relationships trump church callings?