I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS). I have been my whole life.
Congregations are called wards, and each ward has several organizations. The Young Women's organization is for young women age 12 to 18 years old. There are other organizations for the men, the women, young men age 12-18, children 3-12 years old and very young children 18 months to 3 years old.
LDS wards do not have a paid clergy. Everything that is needed to run a ward is done by volunteer work. In the Church, we call this "having a calling". We believe that these callings are from God and we are called to do His work.
For the past 2.5 years, my calling has been in the Young Women's (YW) organization. We have a one-hour class on Sundays during which we study and talk about various gospel principles. We also have a 1.5-hour activity on Wednesday nights. What we do varies from week to week but the main purpose is for us to meet together to have fun, build relationships, learn, serve and apply gospel principles to our lives.
Tonight's activity was a pajama party. We watched a movie (Despicable Me) and enjoyed food brought by everyone. We try to make our activities uplifting and spiritually strengthening. The idea is that these young ladies have a lot of different things competing for their attention and if our YW activities are just another "fun" activity, then they would choose to hang out with their friends instead. Also, YW activities give them a spiritual "shot" that can keep them going through the rest of the week until Sunday comes around again. But I think there's nothing wrong with having an occasional activity that is just plain fun once in a while. We will be quite involved with service-related activities through the end of the year so we decided a low key activity would be fun.
I love serving in the YW. I love these girls. I have enjoyed getting to know them and seeing them grow. They are smart and beautiful, and they have strong testimonies. They care about others and are willing to help out when asked to. I am grateful for the opportunity I have to be involved with them.
I am also grateful to be a member of my ASL (American Sign Language) ward. Until recently, ASL wards were called Deaf wards because the members were D/deaf themselves or had D/deaf family members. I grew up in my family's ward. I was the only deaf person in the ward. I didn't know sign language and neither did anyone else in the ward. I was very fortunate that my parents were both teachers (mom=kindergarten; dad=college professor. Both retired now). They took their responsibility to teach me very seriously. I grew up lipreading and speaking for communication. I can't hear at all. I did have hearing aids through high school but they weren't of much use to me. So my parents spent a lot of time one-on-one with me, making sure I understood our church's teachings. I will be forever grateful for that. I also had wonderful teachers/leaders in church who made sure I was involved and at least knew the general topics of discussion. I will be forever grateful for those dedicated leaders too. I know, though, that I missed a lot of what was said and discussed.
I first started attending a congregation with ASL interpretation when I was a sophomore in college. A few Deaf students and interpreters attended one of the student wards. When I was 21, I left to serve a 18 month volunteer mission for the Church. I had the opportunity to work in Tennessee, California, Missouri and Kansas. California and Kansas had Deaf branches. Tennessee and Missouri had groups of Deaf people that met with a ward and had interpreters. Later on, a Deaf branch (similar to a ward in function, just smaller numbers of people) was established in my hometown. After I married, I started attending the Deaf ward my husband had been attending. We lived in that ward for 6 years, then we moved to my hometown and attended the Deaf branch there. Then we moved again and attended a Deaf ward for 2 years. Our last move was 5 years ago and we have been attending our current ward since then. There have been a few times in the 15 years that my husband and I have been married that we have attended family members' wards (which Deaf members refer to as "hearing" wards) where there was no ASL interpretation. After over 20 years of attending church where ASL was the language used to teach and preach, going to a hearing ward is really difficult for me. I just miss too much of what is said and frankly, not understanding anything is boring.
There are many reasons I am grateful for the ASL ward but I think the number one reason is barrier-free communication. I can talk to anyone, anytime for any reason and not have to worry about misunderstanding or miscommunication. I can be taught and edified in a language that I understand.
Some might wonder about my children. They are all hearing. But ASL is their first language and our preferred/primary language at home. As they've grown up, they've learned more and more ASL. So they understand just as well as we do.
I am grateful for the faith I have in God. Yesterday was the general election in which we elected a new President of the United States. I was really surprised (and yes, disappointed) by the results. But I believe in God and that He is in charge and so I will put my faith in Him and just keep doing my best to do what He wants me to do. I will pray for the leaders of this country to work together to lead us through these difficult times. Politically, I believe what I believe in, and my friends and family may believe like I do, or they may believe differently, but in the end, we are all Americans and it behooves us to lay aside our differences and work together to find answers and solutions to the difficulties our country faces.
God bless our country. We may have our problems but I am still grateful to be an American and for the United States of America.
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