West Oquendo Ward

So, I realized that I have not talked at all about our ward/church activity. Basically, I love our ward!!! It is small....REALLY small.....the awful economy has really taken a toll on our ward membership. Most people hold two callings and every week we find out about more people moving out, while nobody is moving in. It is really sad because we have gotten to know a lot of the people really well because it is so small. I feel like everybody is friends with everybody. There are really no cliques or any special groups. It feels more like a family than a lot of the wards I have been in because of our size. I just wish everybody would stop leaving!!! Because of the great need for people to fill callings, Dev and I have had lots of opportunities to serve even though we have only been in this ward for a year. I was originally called to be one of the leaders for the activity day girls. This was such a fun calling, but I only did it for a few months. I was then called to be the primary chorister which was THE BEST!!! Unfortunately, I also only got to do this for a few months as well. I am now the 1st counselor in the YW presidency as of about a month ago. I am still just starting to get my feet wet, but so far so good. I love the ladies that I work with, they are all amazing, and the girls are really sweet! Of course, just like the rest of our ward, our YW is really small too. We have only 3 reliable active girls and then a handful of semi-active girls that keep us on our toes. Luckily we are getting a new girl in a couple weeks...that will make 4!!! This is just so weird for me because I was always in a pretty big young women's group growing up. We are starting to combine with another ward for weekly mutuals though, so that should be fun!

Dev was first called to be the sunday school teacher for the 16 and 17 year olds which he is sooo good at. There are really no active 16-17 year old girls, so he usually teaches all boys. He has been a really good influence on a lot of them when it comes to serving missions and education. Of course, he also frequently has them over to play video games too which helps :) He was then later called to be the Sunday School President, so he is currently serving in both positions, which isn't really much more than has has been doing outside of the fact that he now has to attend Ward Council and put on a training once a year. I think that he is so good with the youth, pretty much because he is such a kid himself. We both really like working with the youth in our ward, even if they are small in numbers. We have made some really good friends in our ward and love it. Once again though, people need to stop moving out! Or at least if you are, make sure an LDS family moves into your house!!!!