Interesting Developments

Some of you know that my family left our Ward to attend another in a different Stake. Bullying of my daughter, ineffective and destructive leadership, my family refused to go and so we attended a different Ward for 3 years. After our excuse for being there wore thin, and they stopped including us in things, we have not been attending church at all, except my daughter, who they continued to accept.

Then…new Stake leadership at home. They listened to the membership, released the Bishop, and put in a very strong leader — very out of the box thinker, a serial entrepreneur….someone I admire. He’s made mistakes, but I find him easy to forgive. Primarily because I know that culture can put us in a position where we “know not what we do”. I think his intentions were pure.

To make a long story short, he managed to influence my wife and daughter, who now attend our old Ward. My wife now has a calling. My daughter made a commitment to attend our old Ward and did so for the first time in three years. She actually approached one of the remaining bullying youth (most have moved) to try to make amends and share her forgivness for what they had done to her, and there were tears, forgiveness and they made amends.

My son and I are off the charts though — I don’t attend on Sundays, and have little or no desire to attend other than to support my family. I am serving hard in a non-profit I started, and I don’t see the church as a fruitful place to put my time for now. My son trusts me now with his feelings and told me he doesnt’ want the priesthood because he doesn’t like attending church, and in his own words “If I accept the priesthood I’ll only be expected to be there even more often”. Asked why he doesnt’ attend church — his answer is “it’s boring”.

I can’t say I disagree.

What was interesting was how the Bishop got the Ward to put their arms around my wife and daughter. He did what I would have done. A lot of people came up to them and were friendly and kind, but NO ONE asked “where have you been???”, “Why haven’t you been attending our Ward?”. No “Where you been all these years?”, “So you decided to come back again did you??”/

None of that — just friendliness and conversation making. My wife and daughter both rushed into my office when they got home and it was a torrent of positivity to the point I dropped everything and had a gush-fest (I mean that positively, not sarcastically) in the living room.

They came home full of positivity about the Ward.

I thought I would share this — I’m pleased with how this Bishop has attempted to bring my daughter and wife into the fold again. How it will make it easier for me to return — there were times I wanted to go back to our old Ward to reduce our commute and stop feeling so rebellious, but no one else wanted to go.

I think when they finally get our building back in shape (it is 2 minutes from my house), I may return again in some capacity.

It doesn’t surprise me that the SP of the stake we used to belong to has asked our new Bishop to train the Bishops in his new Stake.