Posted by:
Tyrrhenia
(
)
Date: March 07, 2019 04:26PM
Today, during a quiet minute at work, a memory came through my mind, actually two, and I thought it could be something to share here. As I wrote a few days ago in another thread that I don't know how to link here now, I have been visiting RfM for 14 years, almost 15, but I VERY rarely post something. I feel too shy for that, and this place is too rough sometimes. I don't know...
Anyway, I'll try it and as a starter, I'll tell you these two little episodes in my mormon life.
A long time ago I moved to another country to accept a job at the European branch of an international organization. I had been a member of the church for about four years at that time, I had already been "through" the temple (and this for itself could be the subject of a new thread...), and I came from a small branch. I must admit I already had some items on the shelf, but at that time I still thought it was my fault, or..."I'll handle these items at a later time." I was excited, because I knew that in the new city I would have found a larger ward and be able to experience the church in a proper way.
In my new city the church had three wards. One was close to the place where I was staying, so I thought well to attend that ward.
Many can feel at home immediately moving from a ward to another. Certainly it wasn't my case. My excitement for being at last in a real ward dissipated on the first Sunday, and the following months were very challenging for my feelings about the church as a community.
I admit I am not the most outgoing person, but I think I am usually nice and polite. As a new single woman in the ward I had expected a better welcome.
Well, I was in that ward for three months, and NOT ONCE the Bishop came to shake my hand and welcome me. NOT ONCE! Eventually, when I was getting ready to move to another place in another area of the city (and thus to another ward), I got home teachers assigned. I was quite upset about getting them when I was ready to leave the ward; they had known that I was there by myself, in a new country, new city, new job, new ward, but left me alone the whole time. To their only credit: they at least helped move my stuff to the new apartment.
At a time when I was struggling as a new church member in totally new circumstances, the fact that the bishop never once came to me to welcome me in the new ward left me quite hurt and I was happy to leave that ward.
Years later I met him again, when he was visiting another ward. I approached him and told me that I remembered when he was bishop of the X Ward and that I had been in his Ward for some months and he had never said hello to me. He was embarrassed.
By the time I moved to the new ward, on the other side of town, it was summer, which helped my morale a bit, while everything else continued to be challenging. In the new ward I got home teachers right away, sort of… I remember only one of them, an elderly high priest. One hot Sunday afternoon, and this is the first memory that passed through my mind today, he and his wife invited me to their house. They received me in their well-tended garden, a table was set and after a while the wife served some ice-cream, on a plate, not a bowl. It was a hot summer, I think the hottest at this latitude in the ‘90s. The ice-cream soon started to melt, my home teacher's wife was already sitting at the garden table, her husband was coming back from the kitchen with something else. And the ice-cream was melting on the plate. I couldn’t stand it any longer and I began to spoon it. They looked at me horrified. I admit I had been impolite for eating before he had sat at the table, but the major crime, as I realized, was that a prayer hadn’t been said yet!! The blessing of the melting ice-cream! I blushed and felt so embarrassed. I don’t remember how the afternoon went on, but I was glad when later I left to go home.
So, this has become longer than I thought, as always I am tempted to delete everything before posting (that’s why I post so rarely, because I always click 'Cancel'.) Not this time. Thank you for reading.