A few days into the new year I received a phone call and a new church calling . . . Stake Young Women's Secretary. It was a complete surprise to me. I've been serving as our Ward Young Women's secretary for the past year, but never before in a stake calling. I am excited. And optimistic and hopeful about the learning, experiences, and connections I will gather through this assignment.
Mormon lingo explanation: A ward is the congregation that we meet with each Sunday, a group of roughly 350-500 people determined by geographical boundaries. A number of wards (in our case, 7) are grouped together and that it called a Stake. There are Stake leaders that help train the ward leaders, as well as organize activities for the stake as a whole.
After meeting with the High Counselor at the Stake Center and accepting the call, I walked out to my car, a smile on my face, and honestly the very first impulse I had was the desire and thought to call my mom and tell her the news.
Sadly, I remembered that I could not.
Amid this realization, though, in my mind I could play out the exact conversation we would have had. Truly! As I drove home I could visualize her excitement for me, with detail. She would be so proud! Not that we seek out callings or recognition for them -- but still, she would say how proud she was. Because she was my mom. She would tell me what a great opportunity this is to share my talents, and how much I will love meeting & serving women in the stake, and how much the girls will love/appreciate me or how much they need my influence. Again, these are all my mom's words. I know this, because this is exactly the kind of cheerleader she was for me.
I've said this before . . . but this hole, the absence of her physical, verbal mothering support is something I miss acutely.
This calling also touched home to me because my mom served as Stake Young Women's president in very recent years -- it was one of the last callings she held. And she was amazing at it.
Last week I had the opportunity to give a talk/lesson/keynote (I'm not sure what to call it!) at the invitation of another ward for their Relief Society Night. I prepared for weeks and it was intimidating for me to be put in this kind of position -- literally, all eyes on me, and the whole activity was . . . me! (plus a light dinner) Gah!
Again, this is an opportunity that I wished that I could have shared with my mom. To get her tips, her advice, her support, her assurance that it was going to work out and be wonderful. This is kind of her thing and in my preparations I thought so much of her. I made sure to wear a dress! She had a personal rule that anytime she taught or performed duties related to her calling in front of other people she needed to be in a skirt! Because, that's what she imagined the members of the General Relief Society, Young Women, or Primary would do. I love how she always looked up to others for examples to follow.
I made sure to bring some table decorations -- a quote, a picture, a cute banner, a handout -- While setting it up, I literally felt like her.
(This is mom teaching at a Stake Relief Society event about how to be a wonderful grandma when your grandkids live far away)
My topic was "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?" and hopefully I can touch on some of that soon in a blog post. A lot of what I spoke about was how we can fill others' buckets by the connections we make with them -- the things we say, compliments given, celebrating with them, offering a listening ear, giving tender touch, etc.
And my mind kept being pulled back to a short handwritten note that I came across in one of my mom's many notebooks. She had a whole stack of notebooks in which she had only written on 3-5 pages. She was always moving from one thing to the next! I took a picture of this particular note and I have thought about it a lot:
You made me think, this daughter of mine, that women could be this to each other.
So we should say it a dozen times a day to every woman who we meet because it's the truth and she needs to hear it and no matter if she has a mom saying it, she needs "sisters" speaking it.
I've read this over and over again. The vague but tender message touches my heart so strongly. Sometimes I wonder if the previous page is missing. I feel like she might have wrote this during or after one of our mother-daughter weekends, because it was in a notebook that I gave her on one of those adventures.
What is it that women could be to each other? What is this "truth"? What should women, "sisters", be speaking to each other?
I have my thoughts and feelings. Because I know where her heart was. But I'll leave it up to you to decide - feel - what "this" is.
I thought I might share this, along with my story above, to illustrate an example and a lesson to me. The words that we speak to each other -- support, celebration, concern, uplift, understanding, love -- we need them. We need each other. And even if someone "has it all together" or has the amazing, supportive mom . . . or not . . . we can we need to be this to each other.
Open your mouth. If you see something beautiful, speak it.
