Previous Callings you've had?

[Abinidied]

I don't recall ever being called, just told. And thus, many were told and all felt chosen. And they cried out with a loud voice before thinking, "Baaaa Baaa-aaaaa!Baaa-aaaa-aa!"

- SS teacher: - mostly teaching teens as they rotated teachers faster than Arthur Hoggett (Babe movie) can sheer a sheep).

- primary teacher: where I taught kids how to colour outside the lines and sing songs about how to hallucinate on joy alone re: Popcorn popping on apricot trees (baaaaAAAAaaaa. In my teens I hallucinated about joy. She was hot...) We also taught them about the labelites (what we mormons call people with cursed skin people) who didn't blossom like a white rose and could falsify their DNA so scientists couldn't prove the BofM was true. We also taught them how to lie at the pulpit or they wouldn't get a lint-covered sucker or go to Heaven.

- EQ president: I have no memory of this. (Wait! We moved a lot of sheep - physically)

- GD teacher: I moved a lot of sheep - spiritually. Or so they thought. I got pretty good at dramatic effect - even man-crying on demand. I also called these sheep to repentance for not removing those clingy things stuck to the wool around their butts before sitting on the pews.

- executive secretary: Did very little. Didn't make sense to me to be the middle man with Facebook, texting, and a Bishop who didn't understand that a ten minute interview that went over by ninety minutes would make people next in line confess sins to him they recently committed in the foyer like, "Thou shall not think about dismembering the bishop." Read the book of Abraham four times if you haven't heard of this commandment, BTW. You won't find it, but I just wanted to see if I could get someone to read it four times. Maybe Korihors father-in-law would do it.

- first councillor in BR: In this calling, I told the unquestioning, freshly sheered sheep what they wanted to do for the next few years. We sometimes forgot to pray about it, but we always heard, "Baaaa. . .. Baaaa" anyway so it didn't matter.

Various callings in the YM: If I commented here, I'd have to visit my therapist - still have trace amounts of PTSD coursing through my veins from all the sheep 'Baaaaing" loudly at the same time integrated with loud disturbing sounds violently ejected from the bad air out vent located . . . (never mind) followed by uncontrollable laughter.

- Stake Young Men Councillor: This is where we docked the male lambs tails. We called this technique hormonal castration (or sexual suppression) to which they responded, "Baaaa . . . " with a few exceptions that went, "oink, oink!!!!!!!" because they had already unsuppressed it.

- Stake Young Men President: Having reached the super hormone suppressor status, I instructed the various ward leadership on how to make oinkers go "baaaaa" and baaa's to go, "Blahblahblahblahblah" - a most necessary sheep herding skill essential to effective mission service.

- mission prep teacher: This was mostly a linguistics class to teach them all how to say, "Baaaaa" the same way for some were saying things like, "What abaaaaout the race essay?" or "Did Joseph Smith really have that many wives? Did he 'baaaaaa' them ay ll?" or "I don't feel like a male sheep rib."

- stake SS pres. 1st C: Our tolding required us to sit around for three years discussing what we thought we should do.

- Stake high council: There are no sheep here. . . just sheep counters. Occasionally, they try to make their 'Baaaa' sound important, to convince themselves they had a much broader baaaacabulary then the rest of the herd, and thus could make hard decisions about how to wow others with sports analogies.

I just reread this post. Holy crap! My hair must have been on fire when I wrote it. Sorry if it sounds offensive to anyone. It sounds offensive to me but says something about my wild mood swings in relation to the church. Love 'em some days and others - well. My hairs on fire. I thought about deleting it but feel like that's not being very authentic. It is what it is and I want to be honest about that no matter what that looks like. If it is offensive, please PM me and I'll remove it. I actually deleted part of it that was just straight up awful. Sorry.

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

I don't recall ever being called, just told. And thus, many were told and all felt chosen. And they cried out with a loud voice before thinking, "Baaaa Baaa-aaaaa!Baaa-aaaa-aa!"

- SS teacher: - mostly teaching teens as they rotated teachers faster than Arthur Hoggett (Babe movie) can sheer a sheep).

- primary teacher: where I taught kids how to colour outside the lines and sing songs about how to hallucinate on joy alone re: Popcorn popping on apricot trees (baaaaAAAAaaaa. In my teens I hallucinated about joy. She was hot...) We also taught them about the labelites (what we mormons call people with cursed skin people) who didn't blossom like a white rose and could falsify their DNA so scientists couldn't prove the BofM was true. We also taught them how to lie at the pulpit or they wouldn't get a lint-covered sucker or go to Heaven.

- EQ president: I have no memory of this. (Wait! We moved a lot of sheep - physically)

- GD teacher: I moved a lot of sheep - spiritually. Or so they thought. I got pretty good at dramatic effect - even man-crying on demand. I also called these sheep to repentance for not removing those clingy things stuck to the wool around their butts before sitting on the pews.

- executive secretary: Did very little. Didn't make sense to me to be the middle man with Facebook, texting, and a Bishop who didn't understand that a ten minute interview that went over by ninety minutes would make people next in line confess sins to him they recently committed in the foyer like, "Thou shall not think about dismembering the bishop." Read the book of Abraham four times if you haven't heard of this commandment, BTW. You won't find it, but I just wanted to see if I could get someone to read it four times. Maybe Korihors father-in-law would do it.

- first councillor in BR: In this calling, I told the unquestioning, freshly sheered sheep what they wanted to do for the next few years. We sometimes forgot to pray about it, but we always heard, "Baaaa. . .. Baaaa" anyway so it didn't matter.

Various callings in the YM: If I commented here, I'd have to visit my therapist - still have trace amounts of PTSD coursing through my veins from all the sheep 'Baaaaing" loudly at the same time integrated with loud disturbing sounds violently ejected from the bad air out vent located . . . (never mind) followed by uncontrollable laughter.

- Stake Young Men Councillor: This is where we docked the male lambs tails. We called this technique hormonal castration (or sexual suppression) to which they responded, "Baaaa . . . " with a few exceptions that went, "oink, oink!!!!!!!" because they had already unsuppressed it.

- Stake Young Men President: Having reached the super hormone suppressor status, I instructed the various ward leadership on how to make oinkers go "baaaaa" and baaa's to go, "Blahblahblahblahblah" - a most necessary sheep herding skill essential to effective mission service.

- mission prep teacher: This was mostly a linguistics class to teach them all how to say, "Baaaaa" the same way for some were saying things like, "What abaaaaout the race essay?" or "Did Joseph Smith really have that many wives? Did he 'baaaaaa' them ay ll?" or "I don't feel like a male sheep rib."

- stake SS pres. 1st C: Our tolding required us to sit around for three years discussing what we thought we should do.

- Stake high council: There are no sheep here. . . just sheep counters. Occasionally, they try to make their 'Baaaa' sound important, to convince themselves they had a much broader baaaacabulary then the rest of the herd, and thus could make hard decisions about how to wow others with sports analogies.

I just reread this post. Holy crap! My hair must have been on fire when I wrote it. Sorry if it sounds offensive to anyone. It sounds offensive to me but says something about my wild mood swings in relation to the church. Love 'em some days and others - well. My hairs on fire. I thought about deleting it but feel like that's not being very authentic. It is what it is and I want to be honest about that no matter what that looks like. If it is offensive, please PM me and I'll remove it. I actually deleted part of it that was just straight up awful. Sorry.

I thought it was fine. It's perfectly natural to go through periods of intense anger at the thought of all we give to serve the institution that in turn let us down in its dishonesty.

[Its_Complicated]

Ward Website Technologist: Early on I helped people navigate LDS.ORG/UNITS and mobile device apps. When the smartphone boom happened, I was very popular in the Ward.

Sunday School President: I loved serving this way. We had that organized and covered so well.

[Random]

This thread got me thinking. If you're a woman your answers are pretty much going to be RS, YW, or primary. The end. Oops, I forgot Den Mother.

Pretty much.

Teacher many many times - nursery, primary, Sunday School, Relief Society (Sundays, as well as what was then called homemaking meeting (taught from a manual))
Den mother
Counselor to a counselor in RS (it was a singles subdivision in a family ward; we met at a house). At first, I was called to be counselor, then the "president" told me she'd been told that she was a counselor to the official RSP, so the other YA counselor and I weren't really counselors, even though we were her counselors.
Secretary in RS
Advisor in YW
Unofficial helper in the library (first, when I was a teenager, my mother was librarian, and I refused to attend Sunday School after the boys blew spitwads at the girls through a straw (they hurt). Second when I was grown with kids and noticed that the librarian desperately needed someone to help her, yet they never called anyone. About the time I got tired of doing it, the bishop called me to work in a calling, and he informed me that we don't call ourselves to positions in the Church).
Single adult rep for the 30 'til death group.
Chorister in RS (someone from RS saw that I had an electric keyboard in my home and, I suppose, assumed I knew something about music. Bless her heart, the pianist helped me learn how to do my job, and agreed to continue playing when I flubbed up. She also reassured me that, usually, no one looks at you-which, seriously, was tremendous comfort).
On the activity committee in a couple of different wards (RS)

[Random]

Side note: my maternal grandmother was ward clerk in her (southern Utah) ward. I'm thinking for about a year and a half, but I could be off. My brother conjectures that it was because no man wanted the job, but maybe the bishop and townspeople didn't care if it was a man or woman who did the job.

[AllieOop]

Side note: my maternal grandmother was ward clerk in her (southern Utah) ward. I'm thinking for about a year and a half, but I could be off. My brother conjectures that it was because no man wanted the job, but maybe the bishop and townspeople didn't care if it was a man or woman who did the job.

Years ago I was in a ward where they called a woman to serve as the Sunday School President. You could hear the gasps and everyone kind of looked around and then raised their hand to sustain her. She got the counselors she wanted to serve with her too (both men). She was this no nonsense kind of busy body who already acted like she was in charge of the ward. Her husband was in the Bishopric so everyone wondered if she pressured him into giving her a "man's calling".

What's kind of funny is that she was released the next week. Nothing was ever said, but I heard the Stake President was not too happy when he heard about it.

Now it seems all so trivial. Like a woman absolutely could not do that calling

[LatterDayDeist]

Ward Mission Leader 2X
HPGL 3X
Bishopric 2X
YM President
Counselor EQ
High Council

[Enoch Witty]

Late to this party, but I think my list is illustrative of the arms-length relationship I've always had with the church:

Deacon's quorum secretary (under protest, forced by parents)
Spanish-speaking ward primary guitarist
Ward choir director (briefly)
Ward music chair
Primary pianist
Ward missionary (never did a single, solitary thing for this calling; spent most of my time at church avoiding the ward mission leader, in fact)
Sacrament meeting organist (on a rotating basis)
Primary co-chorister
Reversion to primary pianist after previous one left
Family history consultant (never did a single thing for this, either. Technically still hold the calling, but accepted it only a few weeks before my shelf broke and I stopped attending.)

As you can see, I have never been entrusted with anything at church besides music. Although I was an institute class president at least once. Institute infuriates me based on all the extra time I devoted to learning lies.

ETA: my ward organist experience (yes, another music calling)

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

Spanish-speaking ward primary guitarist

This calling sounds awesome. I want to know more about how this worked.

[wtfluff]

Spanish-speaking ward primary guitarist

This calling sounds awesome. I want to know more about how this worked.

Yeah. What The Fluff??? Primary Guitarist? I thought the guitar was an instrument of Stan!

Please do tell more.


(I might consider going back if I could bring my Les Paul and my Marshall half-stack.)




(Well... I'd have to buy a Les Paul and a Marshall, but it would be worth it!)

[Enoch Witty]

I was 18 and inactive and my mom was in the stake primary presidency, and they didn't have a pianist for the Spanish ward primary (and I was not yet good enough at sight reading to play piano on a consistent basis), so I guess they pulled some strings and we won leadership roulette. It was an acoustic guitar, for the record.

The kids were very sweet. After I left for college, they signed the back of a picture frame with a photo of Jesus ministering to little children. One of my few church mementos that isn't packed with negative baggage.

I remember we used to do "Pioneer Children Sang as They Walked" and I would repeat "and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked" waaaaaaaay too many times and the kids thought it was hilarious. This is a good church memory.

[Zack Tacorin Dos]

Many, including full-time missionary.

[Random]

Dang, Zack. I forgot to add full time missionary.

AllieOop, that's so dumb. 1 week? I don't think that calling takes extra special priesthood keys.