“Unto whom much is given” - My last ward did it better . . .

The other day I was talking to Glory telling her that I had noticed almost every interaction I had that day was initiated by me. I was approaching people I didn’t know, talking with folks I barely know, and finding that I was uncomfortable most of the time. I have lived in my ward for 4 years and I still feel like I recently moved in since I know so few people and interactions are rarely initiated by others. As I was reminiscing about my prior wards and their friendliness and missing the closeness I had with others back then I was reminded of this experience:


Many years ago we were about to have a stake road show and I was near a couple that bragged about how they used to live in California and the productions their stake put on rivaled anything that could be produced in Hollywood. As they bragged about this prior stake and the amazing things that they were a part of there, they then complained how our current stake didn’t compare.

I often reflect on this and remember thinking, “If you were part of that amazing stake, why can’t you show us how to be as amazing as they were?” Why do we always complain how amazing things used to be? To provide justification for why we complain about how horrible things are now? Why don’t we accept the role to show others the way to greatness because we were part of that greatness in the past?

Back in 1997 the Sundance ward was created. A friend joked that they took the “riff-raff” of two prominent wards and created our ward. We were a bunch of oddballs, our leadership pool was very shallow and many of us received callings that required more of us than we could currently offer. It was a great time of growth and we made the best of the situation. This small ward was so close and the members looked out for each other without prompting. I remember Dustin McCoy calling me up to say that sister X needed her weeds addressed . . . no one told him to escalate the issue to me, he just knew it needed to be done and wondered when we were going to do it – we met at her house 15 minutes later. That’s how things were done in the Sundance ward. Many of us had multiple callings. Parents would both have prominent positions that kept them at meetings and required making adjustments so the kids were not left alone. We grew close as a ward and continue to reminisce about the greatness of that time. Eventually the Sundance ward was dissolved and split down the middle. My part of Sundance ward became the Sahuaro Ranch (SR) ward. With this new infusion of people in the SR ward, we were integrated and I watched as the SR ward became even closer. When we eventually moved out of the SR ward, we left many close friends that we love to this day.

So now we are in a huge ward, it’s hard to have the same closeness and familiarity with so many people. But I look back and remember thinking “How dare I complain about how my last ward did it better . . . “, when I should be showing others the greatness that I was once a part of so we can be amazing too. I have a daunting task; I am only me and can only impact so many people at a time. I wasn’t the reason that my past wards were so great, I was just in the ward. The Sundance and SR wards were totally amazing and had many amazing qualities – I want to recreate the closeness and love that existed in my past wards.
Andrew “loves to reminisce” Brown