I was released on February 24th of this year after serving as Bishop for almost five and a half years. Being released was a very bitter-sweet experience, and I was not prepared for the flood of emotion that came with being released. On one hand, I love my family and was glad to know I would have more time with them. I have especially enjoyed quiet Sunday mornings during the past couple of months since being released. On the other hand, I have grown to love the wonderful members of our ward and will miss working closely with them. I had grown especially close to the members of our bishopric–my counselors Nathan Jacobson and Kale Bodily as well as Brother Wheeler and Brother Paulsen.
I’ve tried to list below some of the ways my testimony was strengthened while serving as bishop:
The spiritual gifts that come to a bishop are real. There were many times during the course of my daily routine, I would find myself thinking about a member of the ward or have feelings of concern about them. I found that, almost without exception, when I acted on those feelings and set up an interview to talk to the person, they needed to talk to the bishop. I remember one time when a brother in the ward came to an interview and I told him I did not have anything in particular to talk to him about but that he had been on my mind and I wanted to see how he was doing. At that point he broke down and began sobbing and told me he had not had the courage to set up an interview but had been praying that I would seek out an interview with him.
I also had many very spiritual experiences in extending callings to members of the ward. I will probably never forget some of the powerful impressions I had while pondering and praying about how to staff callings in the ward. Of course, this was not true for all callings. Sometimes the Lord lets us work and struggle to fill them. 🙂
It is a joy to serve the Lord, and His burden is light. We often hear about the heavy load that the bishop carries, and it is true. When offloading information to Bishop Woolley, I was surprised how much I needed to tell him. However, as we seek to magnify our callings and do our best to serve the Lord, He blesses and strengthens us and makes our burdens easy to carry. Despite the many hours of meetings, interviews, and visits, I don’t think my family ever felt neglected. We had many wonderful times together during the past several years. Looking back it is even easier to see how much my family was blessed during my service. I felt like I was guided and protected in my career. During the time I served, I was given great opportunities to grow my career, was given challenging, interesting work to do, and yet was rarely required to work heavy hours or put in lots of overtime.
This is the Lord’s work, and our callings give us stewardship for a time. If we remember that this is His work, and look for His guidance as we serve, He will help us to be effective stewards. Sometimes I forgot that, and tried to take it all upon myself and listen to my own wisdom. Those are the times that I floundered, and when the burden seemed especially heavy.