CHANGE...

Well, I thought we were getting settled into the Ripon Ward. Moving brings many challenges, you have to get unpacked and get settled in your house. Which we are still working on. You have to find a way to help your kids make neighborhood friends and get settled into our ward family and visit with their friends that live a little bit away. It is easy at least when you see your friends at church on Sunday. I am happy to follow the will of the Lord. It just seems like a hard thing when I was just starting to feel settled in our ward and with our kids schedule and all of that parent responsibility. Now here is the kicker, Dave really wanted to move back to California partly because he loves the members in the Ripon ward. This is an example again of how our church is sometimes considered a social church. You love the people you go to church with, they become your best friend. The people that you joke around with, the people that you want to talk to at the church gathering. You know that they are striving and struggling just like you. It makes you feel safe and loved. So naturally it was easy to move back into our house in Manteca and feel instant love from the members of our ward.
Tonight we went to a meeting, our ward boundaries were changed. We no longer will be in the Ripon ward. I am sad that I won't see our friends every week. The ward that we are now part of, is the only ward that Dave and I have not already been a member of, in Manteca. We have gone to church with the people in the Northland ward when we were newlyweds. We were in the Manteca 4th ward, which members now make up the majority of the Lathrop ward. We were part of the very small Sequoia Park ward that seven years ago was dissolved and we then went to the Ripon ward. I love our Stake. I feel like we know many of the people in this Stake. Because of, the blessing to have been part of these wards, and the many different callings that we have had to get to know people in the wards as well. In fact, we already know of, and are friends with many of the people in the Union Ward. It will be hard for the little kids again to get a new teacher in Primary(especially Lizzy and Kyle who are both more visible upset over the change). Steven has two of his good friends that will be in Young Mens with him so this should be good, but the sting is still there in losong some of the great youth that are in Ripon.
Why is it that it becomes difficult to see the people you don't go to church with. Members always say we will still see each other, even when you are not in the ward. We will still have you over for dinner, what ever it is, but then reality strikes and you really don't still do things as you did. I hope that this does not happen to quickly for us. The people in Ripon are so close to our hearts. I hope that as we follow the Lord in this new ward, that I will and my family will, as the Stake President has said, remember that the Lord knows each of us individually. That there will be growth opportunities for us, and that we will feel the hand of the Lord and know that we are in the right place. Three wards in one year seems really hard tonight, I hope it won't feel like that in a couple of weeks. It is a good thing we are going to the Temple tomorrow. I always feel peace there.