Our New Bishop

There has been so much happening that last few months and we've been so stinkin' busy that I haven't had time to blog about hardly any of it. I've been starting to feel a little panicky that I've gotten so behind. I print my blog every year and it's my own family history - I can't tell you how many times I've referred back to my blog to check a date or help me with my Christmas letter. So I need to catch up a bit today. One of the BIGGEST things that happened to our family since the birth of our last baby, happened on Easter Sunday this year. (That's how behind I am.)

The big news: Marty was called to be the bishop of our ward.  For anyone out there who isn't familiar with what that means, in our church, the ward is our local congregation and the bishop is like the pastor, or leader of that congregation. We have non-paid clergy in our church, so we all serve in our wards to keep things running along and to share the load. But the bishop is the go-to guy for sure. In other words, nobody in their right mind would ever want the job. But we're trying to have a good attitude about it, I'm sure there's a reason he's there. And I'm proud of him. He's a good man - he's a hard worker and has an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, which is a great quality in a bishop. And I know he's going to learn A LOT and have a lot of growing pains along the way.

One of the cool things that he's able to do as a bishop is perform marriages. He got to do his first one last Saturday. It was someone we didn't know, they were visitors to our area. He had to get special permission to marry them because the weren't in our ward.

I've photographed some weddings over the last year or so that were performed by bishops who, well... didn't do such a great job, in my opinion. So I took Marty aside the night before the wedding and asked him what he was planning to say. He wasn't too nervous about it, I was kinda nervous for him and wanted him to do a good job. I shouldn't have worried - he totally nailed it. He gave great advice, but kept it short. He was warm but didn't make stupid jokes. He was articulate and confident. And he looked great while he was doing it. :o)


He wore one of my dad's nice ties.

Another kind of cool thing about being at that wedding, I met a relative. The couple was actually from New Mexico and their branch president and his wife came up for the wedding. As we got visiting with them, we realized that he was from the same hometown as my mom's family and turned out to be a distant relative of ours. They were lovely people and he gave me a big "cousin kiss" on the cheek when we said goodbye. This is them with the newlyweds.



Whew, I'm glad to have blogged about that, I feel a lot better now. I can move on and try to get caught up on a couple more posts while it's Sunday and I'm not working.

Wish us luck with this bishop thing.