A Bishop’s Week

This was a busy week to be a bishop. I only saw part of what when on. I know there were a bunch of people who wanted to see him. And someone who was about to have a car repossessed… but she didn’t want to come in earlier because she thought he might be mad at her. So she waited until the amount was huge and they were coming to repossess the car that day. I don’t know who it was or how it turned out, but I know the struggle about what was the best way to help was tough.

We had two people pass away this past Sunday. One was easy. The family was doing it at another church. The second one was more involved. The husband was a non-member. The son was a member but in Arizona. And communication was a bit slow. So there were phone messages back and forth as they tried to connect. The person who would normally do the program was not in town… but they didn’t get the full program until the day before the funeral. So that added some stress.

We went to the temple on Friday. That was more relaxing in some ways… if you don’t count the 4am wake-up and the 9pm return. The nice thing was that we were a small enough group to drive in the O’Brian’s van so the trip was much more comfortable. We were able to do 4 endowments, 3 initiatories and 14 sealings for family names. So it was a wonderfully productive day.

Saturday, however, was scheduled to be a doozie. There was a road clean-up scheduled at 7am with a breakfast to follow. Some lady was driving from Texas here and needed help cleaning out a storage shed hopefully at 9am. There was a funeral at 10 that Tom was officiating at, plus the burial, plus the lunch for family. Then then was a wedding Tom was to do at 2pm at a different church and then the reception following at our cultural hall for a Maple son— a longtime multigenerational ward family.

The good news was that storms were predicted and materialized, so the road clean-up and breakfast were postponed. The lady from Texas called and canceled because of the weather as well. We got about an inch of rain, but there was a short section down 9^th street that had several trees uprooted, a roof blown off, and a tree fall across a mobile. Let me tell you, there was not much left of the mobile. Fortunately it was empty.

So Saturday was reduced to a funeral and a wedding. 

Plus we heard back on a few repairs needed to our Spring Park house for the sale, so Tom went over there after the events to check them out. He planned to come home and mow. But after getting dressed for it, he just sat on the sofa for a few minutes and said, “I just want a little “me” time. Is that selfish?” Poor Boy. So he didn’t mow. He went and watched a movie. Then he made banana bread for BYD the next day.

Today, he got up early and made brownies, because, after all, the youth deserve more than ice cream and banana bread for their treat. He went off for 7:30 am meetings, conducted sacrament meeting, and I don’t know what other meetings, and then came home and had Bishops Youth Discussion (BYD) with 17 youth. It sounds like they had a good time. He must shoo them out the door at 3 so he can eat and leave before 4 for Seminary Graduation in West Plains (an hour away) at 5pm. And thus is the life of the Bishop.

And that doesn’t include fixing the steps at the midway duplex (2 days of work) bushhogging the pasture (about 7 hours of work plus ichy eyes and runny nose from hay fever,) digging out a bush and weeding the garden and…. I am blessed to have such a great man.

My week was somewhat more relaxed. With my book done, I’m theoretically going back an cleaning up stuff that got put to the side and looking for new work. I’ve been having fun with cryptocurrencies. They just keep going UP! I am astonished.

Monday night we had Empty Nesters at a home with a beautiful lawn and garden. She is the president of the Master Gardeners here in Mountain Home. It shows. We had tasty food and warm conversation. She’d invited all her neighbors and other gardening friends so we got to meet a bunch of new people.

Tuesday I helped Tom with the Midway steps and then went to a delightful Relief Society activity on being healthy. They talked about eating better, reducing stress and getting enough sleep. We ran out of time for exercising, but had time for a tasty fruit parfait.

Thursday I snagged a friend and went on the Art Odyssey tour. Many of the local artists opened their homes and studios to display their artwork. It was impressive and offered fantastic ideas. We stopped at a mosaic maker that really did amazing things and Jennifer got some great tips. We went to a ward member’s studio- watercolors- that I had been wanting to go and visit. We stopped at a pottery, a jewelry maker and several other artists. It was a fun afternoon.

Friday and Saturday were Temple, funeral and wedding with Tom.  After the funeral I stopped at Friend’s Market and bought a flat of locally grown strawberries. It was the end of the season and I was afraid I’d missed it altogether. I didn’t have the umph to do jam so I just froze most of them… except a few for this.

Today I took my hairdresser with me to church. We had perfect talks on the plan of salvation and why our church is different from others even as we believe in family and marriage and other common values of other churches.  Tonight while Tom goes for the seminary graduation, I’ll have a phone presidency meeting.