On Sunday, April 26th there was a stake meeting to change ward boundaries. We live on the very northermost tip of the stake, so if the stake above us isn't involved, I feel pretty much like we aren't going anywhere. After spending 3 hours in church I didn't even plan on attending the meeting because I was sure I would hear all about it from all the people the change would affect.
Well after church around 1 or 2 in the afternoon Jake and I were laying down to take a nap. My phone buzzed and I noticed I had a voice message. It was a bit odd that it buzzed because I don't very often get any cell service at all in our house. I hit play and was surprised that I had enough service to listen to the message. It was from a counselor in the stake presidency asking for Jake to return the call because they wanted to meet with him. Jake had a voice message on his cell phone as well. He returned the call and they asked us to come to the stake center at 4pm. Jake had planned on picking up brother Moulton for the meeting at 6, so he had to call him and tell him he couldn't.
We went to the stake center and met with one of the counselors - I beleive it was president Southwick. He talked to us briefly, but we still didn't know what was going on, then he had me wait out in the hall. I was out there for a long time wondering what was happening. President Randall, the stake president saw me and although he is in our ward I am pretty good at blending in with the back wall, so he didn't know who I was. He visited with me for a while and finally the door opened to the office that Jake and president Southwick were in and they invited me back in.
Jake still had a look on his face that showed me he still wasn't sure what calling they were going to extend to him. He had just had a worthiness interview to become a high priest. President Southwick told him that the stake president had felt inspired to call a new bishop for our ward. This had happened mid week, so the new bishop had just a few days before the Sunday night meeting to decide who he should call as his counselors. Jake was asked to be the first counselor. I asked if we got to know who the new bishop was before he accepted (but I already was pretty sure I knew who the new bishop was). For months I have said that John Mendenhall will be the next bishop, and even just the week before as I was painting a bedroom with his wife Shana and Joy Harris I had said to Shana that I thought he was going to be called, but I figured it would be 6 months down the road after all the ward boundary changes had happened and things had settled in. John was called as the new bishop and he had felt even prior to being called that Jake and Ben Wise would be good counselors.
It was quite a surprise to get that type of calling just an hour before the meeting that they were announcing it in.
Bill and Alyce, even though they had just spent a couple weeks with us came back out so that Bill could ordain Jake a high priest on May 1st.
