We knew that it was coming because our ward had around 800 people in it (and growing every week). In fact, come January there were scheduled to be 50 new sunbeams in primary. We know that the split will be good in the long run, but it's a little bittersweet. It's hard to say goodbye to such a wonderful ward family, but it will be good for everyone to have smaller (and more realistic) numbers of people to get to know and to minister to.
We are excited for the change and to be able to develop our new ward family. But there are a few things we are going to really miss, the main thing being our callings. We both LOVE our callings, but because we will be a part of the Thanksgiving Meadows Second Ward we were all officially released from our callings at 12:00 pm today (and will only have sacrament meeting for the next two weeks while they work to issue everyone callings and get a new functioning ward going). I've been the Ward History Specialist and have loved taking pictures of everyone for the ward directory and working with the auxiliaries (and learning how to spell auxiliary) to put together the ward history. Like loved it. David has been a primary teacher for the CTR 6A class and he has also loved that. It's been really fun for him to have gotten to know his kids and watch them grow through the year. He also loves to be in primary where he can refresh his memory of the primary songs so that he can come home and sing them to Lydia. Today, after church, there was a knock at the door and it was one of his primary kids, Madeline. She had brought him a treat to say thank you for being his teacher. (We think it says "Dear Brother Peten, I will miss you 100 so's. Here is a picher of us holding hands." Like "I miss you SO so so so much - 100's SO's so much)
It was so cute (in fact, 100 so's worth of cute). Those kids really loved him.
The other sad thing about the ward split is that one of the couples that we've gotten to know the best is in the other ward. We prepped ourselves for that eventuality because we couldn't figure out a realistic ward split that put us in the same ward, but we are sad that Garret and Karli Shields won't be in the same ward as us. Hopefully, we will still be able to get together and play lots.
And speaking of the wonderful Shields family - they are going to add a new little baby girl to their family in January. I offered to throw Karli a baby shower and I'm so glad that I did. It took place yesterday and turned out super cute.
Moral of the story: The church is true no matter what your ward is called. We are excited for this new adventure; to make new friends and to serve in new capacities. Although we are both hoping to be re-called to our previous callings, we will be glad to lift where we stand and step up to fill the needs of our new ward. Wish us luck as the newest members of the Thanksgiving Meadows Second Ward!
