Over time and through some painful experiences, I have learned to keep my skills as a “computer geek” secret from members of any ward I live in.?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020 I even act dumb when asked?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020 if I know anything about printer drivers so they can print home teaching reports, etc. if I happen to be passing by the clerks office.?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020 I have found that if “They” ever find out about my superpowers, I’ll get roped into a “computer related” calling and be stuck there until I move or die.<\/p>\n
I was talking to a friend about this.?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020 His profession is in finance and investing.?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020 Because of this, he was shackled to the financial clerk chains for many years, even though he knew nothing about accounting.?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020 His leaders always commented that they were grateful that they had him because someone with his experience made things go so much smoother in the ward.?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020 He would always joke to me that he had zero experience before he took the calling.<\/p>\n
I believe we have others who are typecast into certain callings.?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020 Of course this won’t be 100% of the time, but it is very common in my experience.?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020 I was in a ward where a lady worked as a head librarian at a city library… bet you can guess what her calling was.<\/p>\n
To me, the odds of this being “inspired” 100% of the time is pretty small.?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020 I believe these are callings of convenience.?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020 To me, it was disheartening to have to do my computer job all week long, and then in my spare time have to tend to the computer needs of the ward and the family history center.?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020 I never got a break.<\/p>\n
Locally, (again, not 100% of the time) my experience is that the leadership callings of the ward and stake are reserved for the “professionals”.?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020 High councils are mostly full of doctors, dentists,?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020and lawyers.?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020 Bishops are dentists, lawyers and doctors.?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020 And I can see why, it’s because there is no calling in the gospel that coincides with their profession.<\/p>\n
This leads me to think that we need some new callings in the church.?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020 We need to have the ward doctor, the ward, dentist, the ward lawyer.?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020 They would then be on call 24\/7 and be able to use their professional expertise to help the members of the ward FOR FREE, just like I do when I use my computer skills in a calling.?\u00c7\u00ac\u2020 Who knows, maybe we’d see more convert baptisms if people knew they had access to those types of resources as a result of being a member of the church!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"