Be warned: Read this post at your discretion.
The semester is nearly over and I'm glad because for the past two months or so as a Sunday School teacher, I've been really frustrated. Out of all my callings that I've served in at various places, never have I been more frustrated than here at the ward I'm at now. Everything about the Sunday School organization in particular has been really disorganized; I just found out that our Sunday School President wasn't even set apart by a member of the Bishopric or have any counselors. Why that hasn't happened all semester long is beyond me and frankly, none of my business.
But to be even more frank, this inability in some people to take initiative to get things done and solidified is having an effect on me and how our Sunday School class has turned out. I am frustrated with how disorganized the Sunday School is. I am frustrated about how pathetic attendance in my Sunday School class has been in particular. We have three separate Gospel Doctrines classes to help balance things out but my class apparently has the least number of people attending while the other two seems to be the classes everyone else is going to. We also had classrooms assigned by apartment but that hasn't been well enforced; from what I've heard, the classroom assignments were listed on the program we hand out for Sacrament Meeting just once and then it just blew away into the wind, figuratively speaking. It is simply mind-blowing about how incompetent some people can be at accomplishing the simplest of tasks to allow for smoother function of Sunday School.
I'm frustrated that I am not able to fulfill my calling because these simple things are not taken care of first. I am sick of wasting time out of my day preparing for a lesson that I end up not teaching. I'm frustrated about how this is having an effect on my team-teaching partner, who has become rather discouraged about our pathetic classroom numbers. I am trying to help someone build confidence in her teaching skills so that she'll have no problem doing so in the future when she teaches a Church class on her own. But I can't do that if we don't have a Sunday School to teach. We ended up not teaching this past Sunday so I don't even know how the rest of the semester will turn out. I seriously question whether or not we're actually needed as Gospel Doctrine teachers when two other classes are doing better than we are. And I feel terrible that my team-teaching partner is discouraged; I fear that this experience will give her a bad first impression of what it's like to teach Sunday School. Never have I been more frustrated and underappreciated serving in the Church.
The gospel and this Church is true. And I understand that this gospel and Church is run and utilized by imperfect people. And I know I'm imperfect and that has shown in past lessons I've taught, even though I did my best. And I understand that we're a brand-new Ward that was established at the beginning of the semester but for crying out loud, that "we're a new ward" excuse has gotten old. Do we lack THAT much common sense? Haven't we been entrusted by the Lord to fulfill the callings we're extended? And are we seriously going to allow the fact that we're a new ward handicap us and hold us back for the rest of the semester? If there's ANYTHING I've learned about these past few frustrating weeks, it's that not everybody is perfect and not everyone is reliable to some extent. I've also learned that when you want something done, you gotta do it yourself to make it happen.
I hope we all see ourselves trustworthy not only with our leaders but also in the eyes of the Lord to fulfill our callings during our lifetime service in the Church. If not, then make sure to take the steps necessary to become trustworthy.
