- the ward, the neighbors etc. want you to.

Unless you are ward 'royalty' ie, have lots of your family in important positions, doing what everyone wants is not the way to go. Why? Because as soon as you can't do it all anymore, then you are spit out and thrown upon the heap anyway. If you have lots of family/mentorship going on in the ward, you might be 'allowed' to go thru this little phase b/c you'll be back and they make allowances for that.

Personal example: dh was asked to be ward mission leader.They talked to me and they talked to him. I told them that he is working 2 jobs and these jobs will finished by winter as they were seasonal jobs. He was officially unemployed, but 2 members in the ward had some summer jobs - working at a golf club and some gopher work at construction sites. So he couldn't really give any of his time til those jobs were done. Seriously. Our family needed the money! This was in the 90s when there were few jobs in our area.

They asked him anyway and he tried to do what he could between time at his jobs. Missionaries were hounding him to have meetings with them. They would call me asking for dh until i was afraid to pick up the phone. Finally dh said that he was quitting.

Do you think they understood? That they commended him for trying the calling? How awesome it was that he was working 60-80 hrs a week at joe jobs to keep off welfare and support his family? No. He was blackballed. In the decade or more we were still there he never got a job higher than ward clerk. Almost all the other guys in his circle became bishops or counsellors. Not him.

So don't care about what the ward will think. This is your choice and your 2 years. If they insist, and you want to see how far you can take it, tell them you'll go if you get to go to Europe, esp. to learn another language. Esp. if they pay for it. You go, they look good, you learn a language and get 2 years of being a tourist. If that's not your cup of tea (not everyone is good at learning languages) keep firm.

At 17 our son came and told us he wasn't going to church anymore. I was not TBM by then, barely coming myself and it still 'hurt'. He wasn't following in his dad's footsteps, he wasn't going on a mission. blah blah blah. I had to talk down the critical voice too and until he actually said it, i didn't care if he went on a mission! So your parents first words may not be their last ones.

If you don't have a path for your own life, there are many others who would love to have you help fulfill their goals. TAke some time and think what you want and how you might be able to get it. Good luck.
-karin

Love your last paragraph Thanks, Karin.

When I saw how beaten down my intellectually and physically disabled brother was when he got home from his mission--as he walked off the plane we could all tell--I started to tell my little 2-year-old son that he WOULD NOT be serving a mission. He told me not so long ago (he is 33) that when they'd sing "I hope they call me on a mission" in primary, he would think to himself, "Thank goodness I don't have to go."

I don't know how it was that my disabled brother ended up on a mission.

But as in all things mormon, your husband's experience is pretty typical. I never wanted a leader as I wanted my husband at home. After I had been inactive for a while and my husband had left me, they asked me to be in the YW again. I was rather shocked, but I knew the people well. I was working 2 jobs and taking care of a house and 2 kids as a single mother and I had to think hard about turning them down, but I did. I had been in YW before and I know what it takes. I've never gone back anyway and it has been 23 years.

Nice post. Many will drain the life out of you and then rather than give gratitude will toss you aside with a sideways glance.

I like your last line as well. If you don't "find yourself" first in this life, the cult will. They have plans for you.

My friend put it this way, "The Mormons will beat a good horse to death."

karin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you don't have a path for your own life, there
> are many others who would love to have you help
> fulfill their goals.

This is what Taoism warns against. We each need to discover and follow our own path, but that's difficult or impossible when you're surrounded by those who want you to fit their plan, serve their goals. Yet that's what Mormonism teaches: what you want for yourself is irrelevant (and probably sinful) unless it exactly matches the church's agenda.

don't don't don't don't don't don't

Excellent post, Karin.

You are so right about having your own path; if you have even the tiniest gap in your plans, people and Morons will jump to fill that with what they want out of you.

Agree with Desert Rat. :)

karin Wrote:
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>
>
> If you don't have a path for your own life, there
> are many others who would love to have you help
> fulfill their goals. TAke some time and think
> what you want and how you might be able to get it.
> Good luck.

Yep, and it doesn't hurt to remember that the way that ladder-climbing GA wannabes in the church get noticed is by being very good at manipulating other people into taking the crappy callings and guilting them into not quitting even when it's obvious that they're overworked and overextended.