The phrase I hear most often as I conduct ministering interviews in my ward is, “I wish we didn’t have to have ministering assignments. I don’t want to be somebody’s project.”
I was musing about this phrase this week. Then my sister gathered a few of us together today to work on some fall crafts after organizing something similar for her ministering contacts. She pre-dyed dried corn husks in some fabulous reds and yellows and magentas, then gathered us for a wreath-making party. It felt good to be ministered to by my own family members as we sat together in the sunshine in Grandma Joyce’s sunroom and thought about what we are grateful for.
A tender mercy text message
Later in the day, my sister, Karlyn, who organized this project, forwarded me a text that had come from her own ministering companion:
I meant to tell you that my mother-in-law mentioned how wonderful your sister…is! She has been my mother-in-law’s ministering sister up until their recent ward split and she just loved her! And I guess your sister still comes by with thoughtful gifts! Please thank her for me!
There’s a little more to the story that I won’t share here, but here’s why this exchange was important to me: I spend quite a bit of time worrying about making ministering assignments in my own ward. Many church members feel awkward trying to make contact when they feel they have little or nothing in common with those they are assigned to reach. I get that. I agree that it’s hard. Sometimes the visits do feel awkward or forced–especially at first.
Yet consider that I’m not assigning you a project when I make a ministering assignment. I’m assigning you a friend, via my best effort at personal revelation. It’s up to you whether or not you choose to have a new friend.
Were these random assignments actually revelation?
Here’s why receiving word of that shared text has been so meaningful for me: Of all of the people in her ward that my sister could have had assigned as her ministering companion, the Relief Society Presidency assigned her to *Tammy (not her actual name). That’s important, because of all of the people in my ward I could have been assigned to visit, I was assigned to visit *Wanda (not her actual name, either). Tammy is Wanda’s daughter-in-law, so my sister and I are “assigned” to be friends to members of the same family, despite the fact that we live in different cities and no one had any prior knowledge of that relationship until this weekend.
Tammy’s text to my sister, thanking her for my efforts to befriend her mother-in-law has helped give me the courage that my small effort is helping me to create a true friend–someone who appreciates my dropped-off loaves of bread and awkward porch-delivered messages of neighborliness enough that she mentioned it to her own daughter-in-law, who found out her ministering companion was related to me and brightened my day by sharing a short note of gratitude.
It is an assignment. It is also a budding friendship.
That circular path of kindness prompted me to call Wanda and invite her and her husband to dinner, which she accepted. So my friendship with her can continue to grow, even though our ward boundaries changed recently and Wanda is no longer my “assignment.”
Call it a coincidence if you want. Call it a “tender mercy” and you’ll be closer to the truth. Maybe even calling it a miracle isn’t actually far off, because although Wanda and I aren’t close yet, I know now that the Lord cares about encouraging me to keep trying to become close, not just because He wants to bless Wanda, but also because He wants to bless ME.
If you know someone who wants to make me their project, please sign me up! I love fall wreaths and fresh bread. I love going for early-morning walks and I have a weakness for salted caramels, beautiful books, and a well-told story. And I am learning that you can never have too many friends, especially ones you have nothing in common with.
