Nevertheless, I got my Sunday clothes on and set out to make a good impression. But this time I tried something different. I pretended to be the person I want to be. Really this makes sense since I've had so much experience acting. I didn't wear the dress that, although it is very flattering for my figure, always makes me wonder if I'm immodest. I wore no makeup and some of my simplest jewelry. And instead of worrying so much about how I looked, I made sure Andrew and I were on time and I purposefully acted confident and friendly. I smiled as much as I could and tried to nestle myself into the ward family with jokes and compliments. And now on my second week here, I'm astonished by how amazing this ward is. I'm learning so much about how the church should be.
All my life I've been ignored in the church. Either I lived in a ward with hardly any active members or I lived in a ward with snooty cliquish young women. Then when I moved into student wards, for some reason I continued to be ignored. The only friends I ever had were because I met them somewhere else. Once a Bishop blatantly asked me if I had any friends in the ward, and when I replied that I didn't he said I obviously wasn't trying hard enough to make friends. A little annoyed I set out to be friends with the young women. Helping them out at church, trying to start conversations, inviting them to things. Nothing changed, and if anything they went out of their way to make sure I knew I was not invited to their conversations. So the Bishop called me to be the President in hopes that it would help. And it didn't. If anything, it felt like they resented me more. So I'm very used to the idea of church being all business and no fun.
This new ward just amazes me. It feels like everybody is magnifying their calling. The Sunday School President (I think . . .) knew everybody who regularly comes to that class and immediately recognized us as new. He came up and asked us if we were visiting or new and got to know us. Then he introduced us to the whole class, introduced who was saying the prayers, and who was giving the lesson. I felt like the class was so organized and that we were completely welcome. I've never been in a class that had so much class participation and there were so many good comments I felt like I needed to take lots of notes. For one of the first times in my life, I felt included in the class and felt like I was learning something at church.
Then I took the plunge and didn't whine about going to Relief Society. I went straight there and got a seat with my mother-in-law. And it was amazing the spirit I felt. It wasn't so much that overpowering feeling of spirituality as it was the overwhelming feeling of cheer and kindness. Everyone there was so happy to see everyone! It didn't feel clique-y, all the women knew everybody else. There didn't seem to be cliques and I was introduced to lots of people. The lady who does the announcements sounds and acts just like my grandma and I can literally feel how she cares about and loves everyone in the room. In fact, last week she knew I was new and had me introduce myself.
Now, what I actually meant to post about. I don't know what makes that ward different, but it sounds and feels like a committee meeting there. And just that fact makes me feel like Relief Society does something important. I'm not sure what it is that they do yet, but everybody sounded purposeful and important. Everyone sounded busy, important, and at the same time they sounded like they loved everybody there. I'll post later as I learn what exactly makes this ward different, but for now I can't help feeling like this particular Relief Society knows something I don't. Something about our purpose.
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