A new calling

For months I had this ticking clock in my head--an awareness that time was counting down to the 3 year anniversary of my calling as a Relief Society teacher. My assumption was that that meant that the relief society presidency was also paying attention and would want to release me then. Three years is long enough to listen to anyone, right?

It happened just as I had expected--I taught that 36th lesson and a member of the bishopric called me for an interview and released me.

But it also happened differently than I had expected. The newish Relief Society actually had no idea how long I had been teaching and were very sad to lose me as a teacher. And the brand new bishopric had no idea how long I had been teaching. But they had been told that the current primary pianist wanted to be released, and they decided I was the one to replace her.

That primary pianist is also the person who cuts my hair, so I learned fairly quickly that she actually *hadn't* wanted to be released and was kind of sad about it. Boy how this irritated me. I'd been on such a roll in the last year of teaching Relief Society--my lessons were really impactful. (And I say that with full awareness that the gift of teaching is totally and completely a blessing that comes from Heavenly Father had only has to do with me in that I put in the time to prepare to teach.) I was sad for that to end because of a bunch of second and third hand information that wasn't even accurate, and I felt like the calling was probably a mistake.

To be quite honest, I'm bored by playing the piano in primary much of the time. It's a bad combination of some of my personality traits combined with the particular characteristics of this primary chorister. So for the first several weeks I sat and played (and not even that well) and grumped in my mind.

A couple of weeks in, though, I noticed something interesting. At random times throughout the week I would find the words or melody of the previous week's primary song caught in my mind.

...as I search the scriptures
I can feel his words of peace...

...listen with my heart
I hear the Savior's voice...

and after last week when they were singing the chorus of a song that's new to me,

Press forward, press forward,
with steadfastness in Christ...

...and a love of all man...

...feasting upon the word,
and enduring to the end...

As these melodies and words have gone through my brain, their little snippets on endless repeat loops, they have brought surprising peace into my heart and mind. And in the second or third week that I realized it was happening I thought to myself, hmm...maybe this was actually exactly right.