Dear Ward,
Whenever I go to a bookstore or to the library for a recreational book to read, the first thing I look at is not the title of the book nor what is pictured on the cover – the first thing I look at is the name of the author. Often knowing who the author is will give credence to the book or may immediately dissuade me from selecting that book. Sometimes if I have not heard of the author I will take time to read the back flap to see if this might be an interesting person to read a book by. This blog entry in some ways could be considered our “back flap” – the back flap of a book called “MyCalling.org” by the Cedar Hills 10thWard. Hopefully after you read this you will not put our book back on the shelf…
WHO are we? We are members of a congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or as some call us, The Mormons. For those who have not been through Cedar Hills Utah (and even many Utahns have not), our city is a small bedroom community, nestled against the Wasatch mountains, about midway between Salt Lake City and Provo. It consists of a Wal-mart, a McDonalds, a gas station, two schools and seven pretty-much identical churches, each housing about 3 wards such as ours.
Our congregation is probably nothing special, except, obviously it’s special, to us. It consists of a little more than 400 members ranging in age from about 90 years old down to newborns, with more on the way before the end of the year. We are just a cross-section of middle-class America with teachers, engineers, dentists, sales reps, electricians, nurses, programmers, clerks, entrepreneurs, homemakers and a good number of retirees. Our members love to run, bike, hike, ski, quilt, dance, scrapbook, golf, facebook, vacation and play video games. Although ethnically we are not very diverse, members of our ward have come from or lived in most of the U.S. states and combined we have lived in over 40 countries. Most of us are just ordinary folk – the ones you don’t find on the nightly news or on Entertainment Tonight – although we do count among our ranks a former Olympian and a bass player for a popular band.
WHY then would you want to read our blog? While it may be true that any one of our lives may not be engaging enough to hold your attention for an extended period of time, in the aggregate we have over 15,000 years of experiences. We have experienced the joys of birth and young children but we also have had to deal with the death of parents, spouses and even children. We have had extremely happy times but also deal with accidents, disappointments, and illnesses. We deal with the natural challenges of raising children but also have to deal with autism, ADHD and other diseases that can afflict our youth. We fall in love, marry and start a family but also we deal with the inability to have children or the loneliness that we might feel when marriage does not come or when it ends prematurely due to divorce or death. We have been in wars, in politics, and in trouble. We have had funny experiences, hair-raising experiences, heart-breaking experiences and everything in between.
WHY are we sharing this? As a congregation, we spend much time serving each other – we visit in each other’s homes, we teach each other at Church meetings, we do activities with the youth, we take care of the needy among us, we look for additional ways to serve those in our community and we send our young men and women out into the world to share about Christ. We too now want to share! As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we each have a commission or “my calling” to “stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places.” Through sharing our collective thoughts and experiences, we want all to see that through both the good times and the bad, through both the easy times and the hard, that God is in our lives and that we must “press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and all men.” Through thousands of experiences we have found that the way to successfully navigate through each of our lives is with Christ at our side. It is working for us. We know it can work for you.
So, please, go ahead and take this book off the shelf and give this new author a read. As we continue to post, we hope to become one of your favorites and do look forward to sharing our lives with you.
Warm Regards,
Bishop Curtis
Bishop Curtis is a great friend and a great leader. I so much appreciate the service he gives to my family and the ward. The concern he shows for all of us is truly amazing. He is a great example to us all.