[elijable]

For me the opportunity to serve is one of the main reasons I stay. That being said, I am very much an advocate of serving on your own terms. I have always been an unorthodox mormon and have said no to certain callings. I was involved in young mens for years and found that to be the best place to serve. It was easy to teach christ centered lessons. I was able to develop real friendships with the boys. I like to think that I was a positive influence on their lives outside of the church. My focus was to make them better people and to use my experiences to help them through the difficulties of high school. As far as helping them prepare for a mission I would just tell them the only thing they needed to do to prepare was give service to other people and be nice and tolerant to others. Those were pretty easy concepts to teach and reinforce as an unothordox mormon.

I strongly believe that callings are an important part of staying LDS. Not only do they keep you connected, but they provide the opportunity to serve. I have been the gospel doctrine teacher for the past 3 years. I have taught the class in a very christocentic manner. I find that on the days I do teach I generally enjoy church. One reason is that I have sacrificed my time in preparing the lesson (like GDteacher, I spend a few hours preparing). The other reason is that If find I generally like most of the people in my ward. I find the comments during Sunday School sincere and well thought out. I also believe I can be part of the solution or part of the problem. I told my Bishop years ago about my concerns with church history, church dogma, and other things at the onset. He wasn’t concerned and said that Gospel Doctrine needed my perspective.

The callings I’ve had over the past 10 years (young mens and sunday school) haven’t done anything to strengthen my testimony of the church or its leaders, but they have enabled me to get to know and associate with good people. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to keep this up. I don’t think I’ll be able to teach Doctrine and Covenants and am not sure what else I’d be willing and/or able to do.

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