Only in a BYU Ward

Posted by Braden

On Sunday everyone in my ward stood up, raised their right hands to thank everybody for their service, then sat back down without callings. It was kind of fun! Of course, the bishop made a disclaimer: "This is not how it's normally done and not how it normally should be done, but our special circumstances make it necessary and we've been approved to do it this way."

Looking back, a lot of things about the way this ward has been run have been like that! We don't have a primary. For the first two or three weeks, nobody under the age of 40 in the ward had callings. There is not a single widow in the ward for whom the nonexistent scout troop can rake leaves or the imaginary young women can bring cookies. Excluding the bishopric, it takes two minutes to walk from one end of our ward boundaries to the other (assuming you start and end on the third floor of the respective buildings). Ward budget comes by the semester rather than by the year. Ward prayer is, of course, something that's not done in a regular ward. Every once in a while, on a weekend where not very many people are expected to be around (Thanksgiving, Christmas, beginning and ending of semesters, etc.), we have church as a stake instead of a ward, even though it's not time for a stake conference.

It's been fun being in a temporary ward made up of a specific demographic (18- and 19-year-old college students). Thank goodness I get to do it three more times at least!