There was quite a bit going on this week so this post may be kind of long. I'll try not to get too detailed, but you all know that I am not good at not getting detailed!
On Saturday I finished up Seminary lesson preparations and did all the usual chores. We had the sister missionaries over for dinner. I picked them up at a park and it was a beautiful warm day with lots of people out enjoying the lovely weather. It felt like full-on spring! I say that in the past tense because it got a lot cooler this week...I'd even describe it as being cold a lot of the week. Today the high was 51 and we've had below freezing temperatures overnight the last few nights. Our heater has been coming back on, which wasn't happening for a while.
Sunday was eventful since there were a lot of changes in our stake. I went to choir practice before the special meeting that they had for the entire stake. The meeting was broadcast to all the buildings so we went to our usual building. They had maps showing all the new ward boundaries in the foyers and a QR code you could scan to download a document which had the entire stake membership listed with which ward each person is now in listed next to their name. In the meeting the stake presidency explained some of the process they went through to decide the new ward boundaries and how everything came together and they testified about the inspiration they received in making all those decisions. In the meeting many of the wards also sustained new bishoprics and Elders Quorum presidencies. Every ward in the stake had changes to their boundaries and some of the changes were extensive. Two wards were dissolved and three new wards were created, so we now have 9 wards in our stake and each ward is approximately the same size. (I guess there was one ward that didn't change...the Frederick 2nd Ward...but that's because it's for all the Spanish speakers and it's boundaries cover the entire stake.)
We are still in the same ward (Walkersville Ward)--but just barely!! The southernmost part of our (former) ward was put into Frederick 1st Ward and the dividing line is Schifferstadt Boulevard...the main road that runs just south of our house...so we are literally right on the southern boundary line. There's a family that lives just on the other side of Schifferstadt Boulevard from us...their road and our road could actually be the same road, but the name changes as you cross Schifferstadt Boulevard...and now they are in the other ward. The last few weeks, as we've been contemplating the possibility that we might be moved into another ward, we were keeping a mental inventory of what other families would be moved with us. All of those families were moved...we are the only ones in the group who are still in Walkersville Ward. A lof of people in our ward have expressed surprise that we didn't get moved...but they have also been nice enough to add that they are glad that we're still in the ward. 😊
Although our ward lost a number of people in the southern part of the ward, our western boundary was extended so we have a lot of new ward members who used to be in the Frederick 1st Ward. Five of the youth in my Seminary class who used to be in the Frederick 1st Ward are now in our ward, so that is great! They all attend the same high school as Seth, so he is no longer the only youth in our ward who attends his high school. In addition, there is another boy from Frederick 1st Ward who does not attend our Seminary class because he goes to a high school farther north who is also in our ward now. He is in the same CTC class as Seth so they know each other and have become friends (and I know his mom because she comes to my book club). Besides more youth and their families, we also have several other older couples who are strong members so overall the changes have been really good for our ward. We will, of course, miss all the families who were moved out of our ward. It just so happens that both the RS president and the Primary president were among the families moved to the other ward so there will definitely be a lot of changes coming up! (We lost the RS 2nd counselor and both the RS secretary and Primary secretary too.) Hopefully I'm safe from getting a new calling...I feel fairly safe where I'm at as a Seminary teacher.
I would say that in spite of all the changes I just mentioned, the impact on our ward was a lot less than many of the other wards. At the meeting they told everyone who had been moved into another ward that they were released from their current callings, so there are a LOT of people without callings and a LOT of wards without a lot of the leadership positions (or any other positions) filled. I was looking at the ward organizations in LDS tools yesterday (it took them a few days to set up the new wards and even now not everyone has been moved into their proper ward yet) and it's kind of crazy because although every ward has a bishopric and at least an Elder's Quorum president, 6 of the wards don't have RS presidencies, 6 don't have Primary presidencies (and the ones who do don't have full presidencies) and 5 don't have YW presidencies (and again, the ones who have them do not have full presidencies).
Jared & Jessie were in one of the wards that was dissolved--Braddock Heights Ward--and now they are in the Brunswick Ward. Their ward is going to be meeting in our building so maybe we will see them once in a while in the halls! Our building has had 3 wards meeting in it but now we will have 4 wards, so we are going to be crowded. (We've had 4 wards meeting there in the past, so we know it's possible but it's not ideal.)
Sorry I am going on and on about all the ward boundary changes. I'm sure most of you don't care about the details, but one of the purposes of this blog is to help me remember the things I want to remember. Hopefully you just skimmed through all that! Here is one last thing I want to remember, though, and then I promise I will move on to something else. Another thing I have been thinking about the last few weeks when we knew changes were coming and that we might end up in another ward is this: I kept thinking that if we got moved into another ward, it would likely be into Frederick 1st Ward and I was thinking that at least Seth would be with a few kids he knows because over half of our Seminary class was in Frederick 1st Ward. I realized later in the afternoon on Sunday that nearly all of the Frederick 1st Ward youth that attend our Seminary class were actually moved into Walkersville Ward, and all but 2 of the other ones were moved into one of the newly created wards (Catoctin Ward). So if our family had been moved into Frederick 1st Ward with the rest of the families in our area of the ward, Seth not only would have been moved away from all the kids in our ward that he's known all his life, but he also would have been moved at the same time that all the other kids he knows from Seminary were moved into our ward and he wouldn't have known any of the kids in our new ward. That would have been really rotten for him, so I feel really grateful that things worked out the way they did. A tender mercy for our family, for sure!
No more ward boundary change information, but I'm not done with Sunday yet! That afternoon I went to the RS broadcast commemorating the RS birthday. Our ward decided to do it at 4:00 because that was better for a lot of people. It was really nice. When I got home, we had dinner and games with Jared & Jessie, as usual. We played a game called Timeline, which involves putting different historical events in the correct order. I'm usually really good at this game, but didn't do too well this time. I kept drawing cards with inventions, and I'm not as good at placing them in the proper time as I am with actual events like wars and such. It was still fun, though!
Frank had Monday and Tuesday off work because it was Spring Break for the University of Maryland. I don't think he got a whole lot of down time, though...he ended up doing a lot of work for clients. We did get to go out to lunch together on Tuesday, which was nice.
I taught Seminary on Monday and Tuesday as usual. Monday's lesson was about baptism and Tuesday's lesson was about enduring to the end. They went okay. Attendance wasn't as good this week as it usually is. Actually, Seth didn't make it on either Monday or Tuesday...he didn't sleep well so he was really tired those mornings. I went over Monday's lesson with him on Tuesday but I haven't had a chance to do Tuesday's lesson with him yet.
Wednesday's VITA shift was busy but overall it went well. My first appointment was with a lady who is deaf and there was no interpreter so that was a bit challenging! I ended up writing notes to communicate with her and it all worked out. She was a bit upset / frustrated when she arrived but she left happy, which made me feel happy. At one point she wrote me a note that said "no one has ever explained to me how that works, so thank you for explaining that to me." (I explained the difference between itemized deductions and the standard deduction.) When I sat down with the lady for my last appointment, I quickly realized I was not going to be able to complete her tax return because she moved to Maryland partway through the year from Louisiana. We can complete tax returns for two states, but only if they moved from an adjoining state such as Virginia or Pennsylvania. She then explained that she had actually completed her return in Turbo Tax but she got a message and knew something was wrong. She couldn't afford to go to a paid tax preparer either. I told her if I could see the message, maybe I would be able to help her figure it out. She was able to pull it up on her phone, and it turns out that the message was saying that she couldn't e-file (and when I looked at it closer, I could see why she couldn't e-file, but I'll spare you all the details on that!). I explained to her that nothing was wrong...she just needed to print her return and mail it in instead of e-filing. She was overjoyed that her problem was solved and said "thank you so much! You have been such a big help to me today!" That was a nice way to end my shift. 😁
After I got home from VITA, I somehow miraculously managed to get most of my Seminary lesson for Monday figured out before dinner time. After dinner I went to the store and Frank took Seth to Seminary. After I got home with the groceries and put them all away, I went to bed. I woke up briefly when Seth and Frank came home, but fell back asleep quickly. For YM they played a "get to know you" bingo game, since there were some youth attending our ward activities for the first time.
There wasn't any school today (end of term) so yesterday was our last day of Seminary for the week and one of the families brought in breakfast (we usually do that on Fridays). Since Seth was home today, I decided to go to the temple yesterday. As a result, yesterday kept feeling like Friday and today has felt like Saturday! 😂The temple was wonderful as usual, but I struggled a bit to stay awake.
After I got home from the temple, I did laundry and vacuumed and watched the BYU basketball game (sad that they lost!). One of my ministering sisters came to visit me that evening.
Today I woke up briefly around 4:00 am when Frank was in the shower. Then I woke up again when the alarm went off at 5:00...that's what time Seth has to get up on school days and I forgot to turn the alarm off. However, I fell back asleep again and the next thing I knew it was nearly 7:00. It was nice to get a decent night's sleep and I'm sure I needed it but I had a bad dream between 5:00 and 7:00 which involved getting bitten by venemous snakes that also wrapped themselves around my legs and refused to move. I was really happy when I woke up and realized it was just a dream!
Today turned out to be pretty eventful in an unexpected way. I was trying to finish up my preparations for Monday's Seminary lesson so I could move on to preparing Tuesday's lesson. I did get some things done but then Scott called me. I was happy to talk to him, of course...hadn't talked to him in a while. I was still on the phone with him when I heard loud sirens, so I went to the front window in time to see a couple of fire trucks and an ambulance racing down our street to the back part of the court. (It's hard to explain, but we live on this weird cul-de-sac that has 3 "branches" and we live on the first "branch" that you come to when you turn off of the main road onto our street, so there are 2 more "branchs" behind us). I walked out to our deck in the back of the house to see if I could see what was happening. A lot of trees block the view to that part of the court so I couldn't see much but I could see a lot of firemen jumping off trucks, grabbing hoses and ladders, and running around. I also had a clear view of the fire hydrant and saw a fireman rush over to it and open it up...a lot of muddy water came out for a few seconds and then it turned clear and they attached the hose to it. Seth decided to walk out the front door and around the corner to get a better view, and he soon came hurrying back to report that a lot of thick black smoke was coming out of the front door and second story windows of one of the townhouses at the back of the court, and that firmen were on ladders and were breaking the windows. I went back out with him in time to see the fireman break the second window, but by then there was only a little bit of smoke so they must have put the fire out very quickly. I'm sure there was quite a bit of water and smoke damage to the house, though.
I took several photos but they really don't capture the crazy scene with all those emergency vehicles on our street!
Another view from the deck, while they are wrapping up all the clean up.
After all that excitement (this happened shortly before 11:00 am) I managed to get my Seminary lessons done (I have some minor preparation left to do, but not much) and I also got the budget updated and made a batch of brownies to take to our ward Easter party this evening.
The Easter party was a dinner and program. It was well attended, and quite a few of the new families who were just moved into the ward attended, so that was nice. I got the chance to talk with quite a few of them and there was actually a lot of mingling at the tables...lots of new families sitting with long-time ward members, which was sweet to see. I think we are all going to get along great! At one point I said to Frank "I think someone should get a photo, since this is our first ward activity after the boundary change" so Frank got up and took a photo:
Seth was asked to be one of the narrators for the program. The narrators told about Jesus's death, resurrection, and visit to the Nephites and there were pictures to accompany the narration. We also all sang several songs throughout the program. The dinner was really good...we had ham, green beans, cheesy potatoes, and rolls and there were a variety of desserts.
After we got home, Frank had some work to do for UMD (something that had to be done later in the evening and could be done remotely) and I've been working on this post. Now it is actually Saturday so I am going to post this long entry and go to sleep!
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