My new job :)

I received a new calling just before Christmas: I'm the Stake Young Women's specialist, and my role is essentially to act as a sort of 3rd councillor in our very busy stake young women's presidency. My special responsibility is to look after Personal Progress and Camp Craft within the stake, but it extends to doing anything else that needs to be done too.

And I'm absolutely loving this calling :) It is much more time consuming than I had expected, but I was really ready for it (Heavenly Father knew that long before I did of course!). It's good for me to be spending a good portion of my time doing service and working actively in a spiritual cause, and I've already noticed huge differences in my life.

This coming week, for example, I've got some practices with a 'choir' of priests in our stake (who are the musical item for a Stake Youth Fireside we have on Sunday night), I'm also meeting with a member of the Stake Relief Society Presidency to go through music for a musical item at the upcoming Young Woman's/Relief Society fireside in a month or so (I'll be helping a group of young women put together that musical item). And then on Wednesday night, I've got a Stake YW Presidency meeting, followed by the YW/AP Stake Council meetings. On Sunday we've got that Stake Youth Fireside (we're using the A Brand New Year program that was launched on New Years Eve in Salt Lake for the youth World Wide). I've got to bring 4 x 7-layer dips and chips to that for the supper after the fireside. Sometime during the week I've got to contact each of the ward Young Women presidents in the stake to go through some personal progress stats that we need to collect, and I've got to talk to a few different sisters in the stake about possibly helping us with some other upcoming activities. Thursday night I've also got to attend a training session (and present a spot on Personal Progress) with the YW's presidency in one of the wards.

And that's just all between tonight and next Sunday night! And let me tell you - each week looks about as busy! There are stake dances, young women in excellence evenings, new beginnings evening, beehive nights, ward conferences, regular ward visits, stake dances, stake youth activities, firesides, ward and stake trainings, camps, meetings, meetings, and meetings!

This last week, I was getting very stressed about things. Between working, trying to figure out what to do with my evil car, trying to keep up with the new goals I've been trying to meet, doing several calling things and sleeping, I was starting to feel like this lifestyle is crazier than life at the climax of a few infamous exam weeks during uni! I've got a bit of a Martha tendency I'm afraid, and I've been feeling 'careful and troubled about many things'. BUT, today, in Stake Conference, I started to feel like I could just stop running around frantically in circles and just 'be still'. I get frustrated - I want to do things really well, and I want everything to work, and when you've got so many things tugging at your time, it's hard to feel like it's possible to do anything right! That's when we really need to turn to the Lord, and let Him help us. I tend to try and handle things all on my own :)

So, it's obviously going to teach me more humility :) And honestly, the women I work with, are powerhouses of energy! Ana (the stake YW president) has a bunch of kids, a part time job, AND is the busiest YW president I have EVER seen. Between them and my mum, I'm totally set for 'women-who-can-do-it' examples ;)

So there you have it :) I thought I'd mention it, because I think you'll probably hear quite a bit about this new calling throughout future blog entries. I think I'll be learning a lot, and having a bunch of fun doing it!

xo Tammy