Pappa Hardy’s Musings on Life.

This last week was exciting. On Monday, while sitting at work making calls, I heard a ringtone on my phone that indicated a new message was there. I quickly looked, and to my surprise, an announcement from my church that they are building a brand new temple in Payson, only 1.8 miles from my house. Hallelujah. Things like that are always exciting. It will make a big difference for Payson. Well, the rest of the week has been taken up by work, meetings with City Officials and the council, and visiting family. A very busy week.

Today I was released as the 2nd Counselor in the Page Ward Bishopric. I had served in that position for almost 4 years. When you serve in a position like that for as long as I have, you come to feel a huge loss when the situation is changed. I enjoyed serving with some fine men and women in the Page Ward. I now find myself without a calling. I am sure that will change soon, but it is an unusual feeling for me. I praise the Lord for the opportunity that has been mine to serve with such wonderful men.

A lot of years ago we lived in student housing at the University of Utah. It was our second encounter with student housing, in a place called the East University Village. While living in that student housing complex we lived in a branch of our church called the University 2nd Branch. It was a branch consisting of primarily graduate students and their families. We were all young, all pretty much in the same boat, and we pretty much were all poor.

Well, approximately 2 months ago I was contacted by a member of that branch about attending a Branch reunion, 30 years after the Branch President, George Pingree, was released. Being the curious sort, I convinced Bonnie we should go. Man, what an experience. First, we were the only ones from the years 1977 to 1978 at the reunion. Second, most of the people who were there were long time members of the branch, us being there only one year.

It was a different experience. We knew no one, and no one knew us. The one thing that was interesting was one lady came up to us, called us friends, and then realized that she never knew us. There was some interesting backpedaling going on. I thought we would know somebody, but we knew no one. This was the first time since we have gone to reunions that we came up with a big zero. It was good seeing our old Branch President (they had no clue who we were) but that was it.

Well, finally I get to be around when they divide or realign a stake, when I am and older guy and can remember what happens. The stake here is going to be divided, since we have been growing so quickly and as a result, we are going to have 3 stakes made into 4. They have said that no boundaries of wards will change, but the number and type of units in our stake will change. We are going to pick up the single’s ward, and maybe a couple of wards from one of the other stakes, and then loose a whole lot of wards.

This should be really interesting to watch. I won’t be involved in anything of course, but it will be interesting to watch none the less. I will report on May 18 when all shall be revealed.