Well, it's finally official! I was released Sunday as RS president. I'm not sure why it was emotional for me, but it was. I was delighted and relieved to pass on the responsibilities to Crystal M. She'll be wonderful. She is more the "typical" RS president than I am. I think she'll be fantastic.
I have been working really hard to set things up so that the transition to the new RS president goes smoothly. It's been rough to try to set up the Enrichment (or now "RS meeting") for November. In some cases I had to explain to people that I was being released so that they could understand why I wasn't acting on different things. I told my counselors and secretary so they could write up lists of their responsibilities for me to pass on to the new RS president. I didn't tell anyone who it was, but Lynlee guessed it. And Crystal kept Lynlee as Education Counselor and Debbie as Secretary. I was called to Paige's old job: Activities Committee Chairperson. I hope I can work as hard at that as I have at RSP.
Some people said some really nice things to me. "Thanks for your service" was really appreciated. Mitch got up during testimony meeting and said he appreciated how reliable I was and that I was willing to state what I thought even when others disagreed. I love that guy (and we HAVE had disagreements). Sean told me I strengthened his testimony. Steve and his family had dropped off cookies by the house a few weeks before after a lesson on the history of RS in HPG where he said everyone had a Jenny Smith story. I cried for an hour. Renee' told me I was the most "dynamic" RS president she had known. Betty told me about the lesson I gave on burial early in my presidency had helped her DIL. People are so kind. I can't point at any one thing I did that was the "reason" I was called. I worked hard. I messed lots of things up. I'm sure I offended people. Brent asked me and the new RS president to start off our testimony meeting, and I asked people to just block out that I had ever been RSP and just remember my testimony. I do know Jesus died for my sins and loves me. I know we have righteous priesthood leaders guiding the church. I know we have a prophet and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I know absolutely the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I'm grateful to have served and am glad that the work goes on in spite of us all.
Mijin and Haskell invited me to go to their sealing at the temple. I was so touched to be included. They are the sweetest couple ever. I am so glad they are finally married and for eternity, too! It was a long exhausting day, but I'm glad that I went. I rode up with Fran S and Marie H and Mike T. After the couple did initiatories, we all did the endowment ceremony and then the sealing. The sun was going down as we came out of the temple -- the lighting was beautiful, but it made the pictures I took kind of grainy. I hope they look okay printed. I'll know tomorrow. After that everyone went to a Korean restaurant for Korean BBQ. It was delicious. Outside they had a little miniature river with boats floating on it. Beautiful. After dropping Marie off at her house (Mike -- who I had picked up -- had rode home with his wife Susan), I had to go get gasoline, and so I didn't get home until after 11. I was so tired, but it was great.
ASL watched the kids and took them to an ice cream social at school. Jared is out of town.
I got up this morning and rode herd on the kids. Babysat for Emily while she did her first 20 mile run. I am so impressed that a person can run for 20 miles. Wow. I came home, and the kids came home shortly thereafter because it was early release. I have spent the afternoon tweaking the wedding pictures, sending them to print, and working on the website. I also goofed off on FB. Parents called with some family gossip, and while on the phone with them researched some information about court records and stuff. I hope things work out for him. I am researching affiliate and advertising and SEO strategies so I can use these domains I own. It'd be nice to generate a little side income again. I also broke down and ordered the TEN THOUSAND gold beads (which they don't stock) from China so that I could have that color on the bracelets. I hope I can unload a couple of thousand of them on eBay..... The products that have come in so far look good. The theme cards came in today, the bracelets came earlier, BalloonsFast ripped me off on the red balloons so i need to call them, but they look okay, and the pix of the custom charms looked good. I should have all that in by mid October. I've got to buy a SSL cert for this site, and work on the catalog and product nodes' themes. Not to mention ads.... I'm considering going back to running affiliate ads again. And I'm going to add in a content ad block, too, I think.
I have been irritated at another website that has taken over my spots in the search engine rankings and has copied a bunch of the stuff I do. I am trying to get over myself. Her stuff is great, and she's filling a need. I want to provide her with feeds from my site so she doesn't have to update her site with mine any more, and I'd like to link to her stuff from here more. She really does have a great library of stuff. I've got to get over my irritation that I haven't been able to work on this site for the past 3 years, and just focus on providing the best helps, even if that means sending people to another website.
