Musical Primary Chairs

Oy, what a day so far.

Well, I knew it was going to be a bit wild.  I knew I needed to be ready to handle craziness.  I knew I needed my A-game for rolling with the punches ready to go.

Why?

Well, it's the first Sunday of the new year, and I have a Primary calling at church.  If you are still baffled, let me take a moment and give some background.  In the LDS (or Mormon) Church, almost everyone has a "calling."  This calling is a job, a responsibility you are assigned in the congregation.  Primary is the name for the children's organization.  At the ward (or congregation) level, there is a Primary President with two counselors (like assistants) and a secretary-- or two.  This group is the Primary presidency and they oversee all the kids in the congregation from age 18 months until they turn 12.  All the kids are divided into classes based on age, and every year starting with the first Sunday, the kids "move up" to the next class.  It's chaotic and unsettled and a little crazy while all the teachers figure out what they are doing and the kids get used to their new classes and schedule.  The Primary presidency is responsible for assigning teachers and classes and rooms and making sure everyone transitions OK.

Right now I am one of the Primary secretaries-- luckily, our ward has two.  Thank goodness!!!  We have about 170 kids to keep track of.  I had gotten all my prep work done ahead of time-- binders put together for the teachers, new class lists and door signs made, and maps for everyone.  I was as ready to go as I could be.  But realistically, I knew something was going to go wrong.  Something always does.  I just had my fingers crossed that it wouldn't be anything major.

The first screw to fall out of the wagon happened quite early.  Sacrament meeting went over time by 15 minutes.  Now that might not seem like a big deal, but since another congregation meets right after us, we only have 20 minutes after one meeting ends before we have to be out of the chapel (which is where our Primary meets for "opening exercises" before splitting up into classes).  That gave us a whopping 5 minutes to try and get oh, probably 130 kids matched up with their new teachers.  No way.

The second screw out was completely and utterly my fault.  We had complete confusion between two of our classes because I apparently gave them identical class lists (so they were each trying to collect the same kids).  The perfectionist in me hates when I mess up like that!!!

Then one of our classes had to be moved because one of the classes of young men (the Deacons) needed the room.  Then we had lost parents when they were trying to pick up their kids.  And so now I've got new lists and maps to make.  Plus there had to have been about 10 new kids that I didn't have on my lists, so I'd no idea where to put them.

It was a fun-filled two hours, let me tell you!  I was just sighing in relief and dropping my head down on my husband's shoulder at the end of church when he handed me the door signs that I'd put up and forgotten to take down.  Shoot!  I rifled through them and realized that I was missing two more.  One final trip into the building (of course the two class signs that I had to grab were on opposite ends of the building) and then I was done at last.  For now.  

It sounds kind of silly that something like this would leave me feeling like I'd just run a race, but that's what I feel like.  Only I feel kind of lost too, like I'm not sure I actually crossed the finish line.  (Mary, the other secretary, put it best:  "I feel like every year I'm brand new in this calling and I don't know what I'm doing.")  

But hey, all the kids survived, and I did too.  Making it through church is a good thing!  If we can just make it through the next four weeks or so, everything will slide right into a groove again, I'm sure.