Rob's New Calling

Earlier in the summer, Rob was called to be in the High Council.  I wanted to tell you that story.

Note for those of you not in my church: the calling is a fairly "high up" leadership position that requires travel on most Sundays, extra meetings, etc.  People typically keep this calling for years.  It is generally considered to be a calling that requires the sacrifice of a lot of time, and also one that creates some hardship for the family.  So, yeah.  This isn't a pat-yourself-on-the-back type of thing.

Rob and I had a meeting to go to on a Sunday afternoon.  It was a half hour plus drive one way, then an hour long meeting.  We decided to ask some good friends of the family if they wouldn't mind watching the kids for us while we went.  They agreed because they are nice, nice people.  On top of that, when we got back from the meeting, they asked if we wanted to stay for dinner, and since we were staying anyway, why not make a day of it and let the kids swim in the pool.  Everyone needs friends like that.  Who take care of you without thinking it's a big deal.

While we were sitting there by the pool, Rob got a phone call asking if he could meet with the Stake President in, like, an hour and a half.  Uh, ... yes?  You know what our friends did?  They offered to keep watching the kids while we went to yet another meeting!  What great people.

So Rob and I ran home to change and then went to meet with the Stake President.  We kept wondering what he wanted to talk about.  We had a few ideas, but you never know.

President Guffey talked to Rob first.  They figured out that they'd gone to the same mission in Germany, many years apart.  Fun, right?!  And then I was called in, and with Rob and I sitting together, President Guffey asked if Rob would accept, and I would support, a High Council calling.

I immediately thought, "Sure."

And that's kinda funny because of the back story:
Several months back, Rob got a phone call from a member of the Stake Presidency, Jim.  He wanted to talk to Rob.  We only had Jim's voice message to go on, which said basically, "I want to talk to you soon," so we started guessing at what the phone call was about.  Jim is who called Rob to the bishopric years back.  So maybe a bishopric calling again?  Maybe Rob was getting called to the High Council?

At the time, I was just finishing at Cincinnati State.  Rob had barely started traveling for his job.  Elijah was in counseling, for crying out loud, because he wasn't doing well with me being gone from home so much.  It was a stressful time, and I didn't feel like we could handle any more than what we were currently undertaking.

I looked at Rob and said, "If it's a call to the High Council, the answer is HELL NO.  Not just no.  HELL NO, with a finger pointed in Jim's face.  And then a Don't call us, we'll call you.  I don't feel guilty about it in the slightest.  We can't do it and that's that."

Well, Jim's call had been about something else.  Something pretty insignificant.  It wasn't a problem at all.

Now flash forward to us in the meeting with President Guffey.  This calling that I had been ready to say, "HELL NO," to ... now it felt just fine.

I looked at President Guffey and said, "How did you do that?"  I explained about the timing, about how I would have said no at probably any previous time in my life until right this minute.  How we'd been really stressed and things weren't going smoothly, and now things were going great and we knew we could take on more again.  "So, how did you do that?"

President Guffey smiled humbly and pointed to the sky.  "Well, He had a hand in it."  I smiled, too, and shook my head.  The timing of it all amazed me.

On top of that, President Guffey read a passage of scripture that has personal significance to Rob.  Again I thought, "How did he do that?"

So, that's the story of Rob's calling.  It's been about 2 months since then, and so far his calling hasn't been too bad.  He's able to be home in the mornings to help us get ready for church.  He often gets to sit with us in church for the first hour before he has to leave for his next round of meetings.  And he's usually home within an hour of us arriving back from church.  Umm, ... Yeah.  That'll work.