The worst meeting ever

It has been a few years now, but I was once in a really horrible welfare meeting. I had a different meeting that could have been difficult recently, and I may find that I have a lot more meetings in my future, so this seems like a good time to review.

There was more than one thing that made it horrible, and only some of those were in my control. Let me give some background.

It happened while I was in the singles' ward, which is important for the initial concern.

There was a sheet that they had going around Relief Society that reminded the sisters that if they needed a blessing that the proper order would be to ask family members, or their home teachers, or if that didn't work they could ask the Elders' Quorum President, and there were slips with his phone number.

I understood why they were doing this. It was really common for people to want the attention of the Bishop, and he always had a long line outside of his door. That note could be a good reminder that there are many people who can help you, not just one.

Another potential issue might be sisters asking the brethren that were especially nice or cute for blessings. That probably does happen sometimes, and does seem kind of inappropriate.

Anyway, I understood the reason for the note. I still didn't totally approve, because that chain consisted of primarily missing links for many of the sisters, including my family.

We do not have any relatives we can ask for blessings. There aren't that many members in the family, and of those only a few are active, all of whom are female. We have also generally speaking not had home teachers who did their job. We have had a few great ones, but more often than not, no one was coming, and so even if we would have known whom to ask, it wouldn't have been comfortable.

We have generally found it hard to ask for blessings anyway. Not really growing up with an active father probably played a part. We do know other people who have also found it hard to ask, but they have had similar backgrounds. Maybe it can be easy to ask, but for us, it never was. Having a relationship where you trust the person helped. Also if it was someone who felt a little fatherly, that could be nice.

That leads directly to the last issue with the stated options: the Elders' Quorum president was judgmental and pompous, and there was just no way I was ever going to ask him for a blessing.

I didn't need one at that time, but one of my sisters did. She was getting sick and had a lot of things she needed to do, and she felt like she needed that help. Our choices, based on that paper, were pretty unsatisfactory. She ended up asking one of the counselors in the bishopric, and he told her no, that there were other people she should ask.

I was furious on behalf of my sister, but also I was appalled. I didn't love the policy in the first place, but I really thought it was there to encourage people at the asking stage, and not that they would actually refuse a request.

So, I wanted to talk about that, but I wanted to talk about it in general terms, without casting too much blame. Again, I understood the policy, but I thought there needed to be more empathy in its execution.

The problem was that trying to talk about it generally kept everyone from getting the point. Without any names, they just reiterated the policy. Getting a little more specific about what happened, the pompous guy assumed that the "no" was because of a worthiness issue. Finally I said it was a counselor, and then he realized it was him, but then it all became about the specific circumstance, not about that there was an overall problem, which I still felt was true.

That would have been bad enough, but I was also coming down with a cold, and so my voice was starting to give out, and that meeting just sucked. I remember going home and unfriending several of the people there on Facebook, because I didn't want them seeing anything I might choose to post about that meeting.

That part was actually okay. There is a tendency to feel that you need to accept people on social media if you know them and they send a request, but there is no obligation. I don't regret any of those deletions.

I also still think that raising the issue was okay, but what I did wrong was bringing it into the meeting when I couldn't name names. I should have gone straight to the bishop with that one. It wasn't that I felt like I was slandering the counselor; but I didn't want to embarrass him or make an example of him. I didn't really want to identify my sister either. I had thought the story had enough general application that the specifics didn't matter, but I was wrong there. So some things need to go to the meeting leader before, and let him decide how to address them.

It is one reason that I remember the importance of home and visiting teaching so strongly. I often worry about whether we do enough for the sisters we visit, but a few times we have had people call us because they needed someone to talk to, and at those times I know we did something right. That's not what I am thinking at the time, because they have a need and I am focusing on that, but later I remember that there is some trust, that they do know that we care.

And we still have no priesthood holders in the family, and we don't get home taught very often, so in some ways things haven't changed very much. It's nice that we're independent, but it's nice to have people looking out for you too.