Church Callings

Church Callings

When Budd first went into the service and I moved in with Grandma Tingey they put me right into mutual. I was only 19 then and in the mutual presidency. Then when we came home from New York they put me right in again, into the mutual presidency. I taught mutual 18-20 years and that is about how long I have been with Relief Society too. When you get as old as I am everything is a long time.

I substituted in primary when Bruce was just a baby, but that was the only time I've been in Primary. Oh, I had the 11 year old boys and oh my gosh were they fun. Yet they were hard kids. They said, when I first went in the class they asked if I was going to teach them. I said, "I sure am." They said, "I bet you won't be with us very long. We've run off every teacher we've had and the last one didn't make it a month!" Then those boys tried to pick me up and put me out the window onto the roof! There was a dozen of them trying to put me on the roof of the church house, the window opened up right onto the roof. But they didn't get me out the window. Bruce was tiny then, just a baby, and I had to take him with me because he would cry so much when I would leave him. So I just dressed him and took him over there on Tuesday afternoons, it wasn't on a Sunday when they did it then. So I would say, "whoever is the best in the room next week, you can take care of my baby while I'm here." They just loved it and they loved Bruce, he was a real quiet good baby. So they were really good kids after that. We had an old junky care when we got home, we didn't have any money it was just awful to try and get started living again after the war. It was a Ford, but we couldn't make it go very well and I'd take those kids places in it. We'd go out and fly kites, picnics and stuff like that. We couldn't make that car go and those kids would get out and push me to get it started. When I see any of them now they still talk about having to push the car to get it started.

Other than that I was in mutual most of my life. I counted 18 years once and I'm sure I taught after that. Then I went into the Relief Society and I was in it forever. I went in as a counselor and then they gave me a teaching job when we were released as a presidency and I just loved that. Teaching the gospel I just loved that. Then they made me the Relief Society President after Budd was released. I had that calling for four or five years. And then they put me in the Stake Relief Society Presidency and I wasn't in there too long, maybe two years, then they called Budd to be in the presidency of the stake. And they wouldn't let me be in the Stake Relief Society Presidency at the same time. Even Budd said that is not right for a husband and wife to both be in presidencies like that. So they released me from my stake calling, I really didn't want to be released from that. I really enjoyed doing that. That's when I started teaching the gospel doctrine, that's when I started that. Then sometime during that time I was called back into the Mutual again for a while. For a few years, I had those girls for about three years. It was after all my children were gone and I can remember one of the girls, when I first went in, the ward had just been divided. Our ward was made up of four different wards at that time. And so those girls that I had in mutual that year were all from different wards and none of them were happy about it. And this one little snotty girl said, "oh my gosh, look at what we got for a teacher. A grandma," she said. And I said, "that is true I am a grandma and I'm really happy to be a grandma. If you want to call me a grandma that's fine, I would love to have you for a granddaughter." But before the year was over they didn't love me as much as they loved Budd. We took them up to Bear Lake, the whole group of them and Budd taught every one of those girls to water ski. Not one of them had ever water skied. And they had the best time, so we took them up every year after that until it got so that Budd wasn't able to. So they loved me because I came with him.

After that I was called to teach in Relief Society again. I was over teaching the family lesson to begin with. It was talking about family night and what to do with families and then they put in the spiritual living one, at that time it was called theology. I was much better there, I wasn't very good having family hoe evening because Budd was never home. He was never home, Darrell always said he was going to not be like his dad. He was going to be home for his kids and here he wasn't around for any of them.