Ward Split

     In our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints, we have what are called Wards, where we meet as a congregation on the Sabbath to learn more about the Gospel, but it's much more than that. You become family. You see, our Wards are based on where you live. You can't just pick and choose what congregation you go to. We are split into Wards, and there are several wards which are then apart of what is called a Stake. Ok, I am not the best at explaining this, but if you are interested in learning more, click HERE! This will explain it much better.
    Many times a ward becomes too big and we have to split wards to make them more manageable. It's awesome because it means the Church is continuing to grow, but well, to be honest its tough. I have been through many ward splits growing up in the church, but this past one seemed to be the hardest.
    Like I said before, your ward becomes your family. You get to know these people on such a close level, you make lasting friendships, and you are just comfortable. Then comes the news of a ward split. The speculation took place all week of who would be in the new ward, who would stay, who would go with who. I HATE the unknown and it was a long week. Then Sunday came and 4 wards joined together to learn what the new boundaries would be...
     I'm not going to sugar coat this. It was incredible saddening to learn the new boundaries. We were put into the new ward. Carrollton 4th. While the majority of our friends stayed in Carrollton 1st. Like 90%. We were joined with people from Carrollton 2nd Ward (A large part of this ward is now Carrollton 4th) and Dallas 6th. I went home and cried. I didn't want to leave my comfort zone, leave our church building, which we now drive a further distance to get to ours, and its a bit older and unfamiliar and I hate unfamiliar. It was a tough week. I don't know why. I just don't handle change well. And of course I jumped into irrational thinking and told Dan I wanted to move. Really Lesli?! I'm an idiot. Haha. No but really, thats how sad I was. Of course we aren't going to move yet. We love our house, and then this made us sit down and really realize that we really only have a couple to few years left in this house before we outgrow it, and of course that made me cry even more because I don't want to leave our house, and I don't want to leave Texas, but it's definitely a possibility....
       So then I decided to grow up just a bit and I have realized these past couple of weeks, that we have not lost our friends, they are just in a different ward. Which is funny because we have a bunch of friends that aren't in our ward to begin with. June's little friends are still there. We still have regular weekly playgroups with our same friends, and get together with the same friends. Life did not end because our Ward changed.
       A lot of speculation of how things were going to be ran in the Carrollton 4th ward spread like Wild fire and I believed them and really did not like what I heard. In fact I called Dan one day in tears and he took me to lunch to talk about it because of what I had heard. When in reality were not true. People talk, and sometimes it's nonsense. We now get to start from the ground up building a new ward and it's a bit exciting. Who will be called into which leadership position, and what is happening in the Carrollton 4th ward.
Dan and I both have been called into Relief Society and Elders Quorum. We laughed in the fact that it was a good week without any responsibilities or callings in a ward, and how long it didn't last. A small break was nice though. It will obviously take some time, more than just a couple weeks, or even a couple months. We have a lot to learn and I'm ready for the challenge. I think.

All in all, of course I would change it back to the way it was before. We dearly loved the Carrollton 1st ward, and who knows maybe someday we will be back in that Ward, but for now we are slowly, very slowly, getting used to the idea of Carrollton 4th. I think having callings in presidency's will help get to know people and really help and contribute our efforts to make the ward more unified.

It turns out The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints is true wherever you go or are. I'm thankful I am even able to express my religion so openly and grateful for a forgiving Heavenly Father for understanding a girls heavy heart with change that is so good.

If you are interested in learning more about the church, or any thing that I talked about today go to LDS.ORG all your questions and curiosity can be solved there!