Please Give Me Your Thoughts and Advice

[Silhouette]

Thanks for your advice and comments. I'm being sustained and set apart tomorrow. I'll be able to tell you a lot more about what the calling is, and how my first visit to the organization went after I get home from Church.

[Silhouette]

Ok, I went to Church and was sustained and set apart today as the Secretary in the Primary Program. The position entails:

Consulting with the presidency to prepare agendas for presidency meetings. Attending these meetings and taking notes, and keeping track of assignments.

At least quarterly, compiling attendance information and reviews it with the Primary President. Submit the information to the Ward Clerk.

Making sure that the Primary President and Ward Executive Secretary are aware of children who will soon be eligible for baptism and who will soon advance from Primary to the Aaronic Priesthood and Young Women.

Helping the primary presidency prepare an annual budget and account for expenses.

Assisting children, teachers, and parents as requested by the primary presidency. Monitoring classes and maintain reverence during sharing time. Also assigning children to give talks in upcoming sharing times and inform the childrens' parents of the assignments.

Being on standby to take over classes when a teacher is absent.

Arriving at Church early to set up chairs and prepare the Primary room for the kids. Rearrangeing the room between sharing times of the smaller children and the older ones.

Helping maintain reverence during the combined opening excersises.

Lots of work, and I have no computer. Today was my first day in Primary and I've already come home and put three meetings and a baptism on the calendar. All within the next 2 weeks.

It was exciting to be in Primary today, if a bit hectic. The blessing(s) when I was set apart were incredible and reassuring. I can do this, it's just going to take some diligence and effort on my part to learn everything and figure out how to make reports and programs for baptisms and such without a computer.

There was no indication today that these people did not want me there, and I didn't let on that I knew. So.....

Fingers crossed that it'll all work out.

Edited November 23, 2014 by Silhouette

[Vort]

Silhouette, here is a thought about being a secretary.

 

I have served in several quorum presidencies and a group leadership, though never as secretary. In my last calling as an assistant in the high priest group leadership, I served with a friend who was also the secretary and who took his calling very seriously. He was the only "holdover" from the previous group leadership. He took careful notes of all our meetings, including discussion on the various topics, decisions made, and ideas we floated.

 

I do not believe I am exaggerating when I say that he was the most important member of our leadership group. The HPGL agreed with me on that, as did the other assistant, so it wasn't just me. But strangely enough, until that point, I had never realized just how important a good secretary can be for a presidency. We were literally three times as effective because he was there, doing his job.

 

I mentioned this to my wife at one point. Her response was, "When I was the Primary president, I had Vickie So-and-so as my secretary, and she was the most valuable person in our presidency."

 

Moral: Your position is no afterthought. If you do your job well, you will make your presidency vastly more effective. Don't stress over this, of course, but don't underestimate the importance of what you can contribute.

[notquiteperfect]

Amen to what Vort said.

 

fwiw - Years ago, a person in a stake yw (?) leadership position mentioned that "the secretary takes care of the temporal affairs so the presidency can focus on the spiritual".  That gave me a different perspective on the importance of that position.

 

Anyway, I've done the primary sec thing myself and there's more involved then people think but I enjoyed it.  

 

I'm sure you'll do great, Silhouette!

[pkstpaul]

Sound like you received a lot of good advice. Congrats on the calling and on coming back. I'm sure you will measure a difference in your life.

 

I'm sure the bishop was prompted to tell you what he did but being all too human, it didn't sound like it came out well. It was probably good to know and I think you handled it well.

 

I love the Primary program. There is a good spirit there. It will isolate you from the general goings-on in the ward, however.  Being as you are just re-activation, that may be a good thing. You will have to seek out participation in activities, if you want to partake of the social side of the ward. Relief Society can tend to forget about the sisters down the hall. 

[Misshalfway]

You know.  Sometimes humans think like boneheads.  We don't see what the Lord is doing with people.  We judge instead and think we know best and forget to get out of the way and let God nurture and trust his children when and how he wants to.

 

I love that your bishop was willing to be so honest and to share with you the humanness in the situation.  It must have been hard to decide what to say or what not to say.  In the end, he trusted you!  I love that.  

 

And now that you know that the people you'll be working with are human too, perhaps that means that your calling, or your chances for learning how they do things in Heaven, have already begun!  So many opportunities to learn tolerance, mercy, grace, forgiveness, and humility.  Yes?  As if callings are about getting "stuff done the right way". lol.

 

Another poster said something about "Callings must be done in love!"  As if any of us has learned the love and serve perfectly.   I don't know anything about performing my callings in perfection.  I only know how to give my offerings and relying on faith that God loves the widows and their beautiful little mites and that hopefully He'll love mine too.

 

Go give 'em heaven!  You'll do just fine.  I'm pretty sure God thinks you can.  So what could the children of men say against that? :)

[Blackmarch]

Well, if the lesson were to come to ME because of the difficulty in performing the duties of the calling itself, I could see your point, but I don't anticipate me having any problems in that regard. Perhaps you mean that THEY will learn humility by being forced to accept the Bishop's choice?

it's quite possible. god works in mysterious ways.

we are often brought out of our comfort zone to be sent through the refiners fire.... it does seem like in this case it's more than just you that this being done to.

time will tell, congrats on the call, and give it to em >: )

Edited December 9, 2014 by Blackmarch