Philemon and returning home
It's been a full year and then a bit since I was here on these pages, far too long. I was called into a new Relief Society presidency as the education counselor the Sunday before last Thanksgiving, and then writing for the Nauvoo Times seemed to be enough to deal with on top of that, and I just didn't get back. I also continued to be teaching the stake Relief Society Institute class until late January, when--wait for it--my replacement was the sister who had been the previous education counselor. We swapped places, after a seven-week delay. (I felt a bit like we [our ward] were Bethlehem, the least of all, called again for the whole stake. We have very few members in stake callings of any kind. Our ward has many burdens, but many gifts in spirit.) My mother's weekly letter talked about teaching one lesson on Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon today; with not enough time, she didn't go into the epistle to Philemon at all. I started to write about our class,...