Del is in his 5th year of being Bishop.
It has been a wonderful experience for both him and our family and we have felt extremely blessed. It has mostly been a LOT of long hours, a LOT of heartbreaking moments for him and a LOT of love and compassion developed in his heart for the members of our ward. It will be a time of which we look back on with joy in our hearts and love from our Heavenly Father.
There have been a few perks too. Carolers at Christmastime and plates and plates of goodies from ward members - invitations to weddings, graduations and many many baptisms. Del has been able to attend a lot of memorable ocassions just because of his calling as Bishop and able to interact with some very special people.
The above pictures...just a little perk. With me being the biggest BYU fan out there, I was thrilled weeks in advance to find out that Kyle Collinsworth would be giving a fireside for our stake at our ward building. I was looking forward to going...seeing him in person.-- touching his arm or whatever. But, we were also babysitting Emerson at that time and come that Sunday evening, Em was exhausted and needed to go to bed early. The realization that I was the one needing to stay home, as Del needed to be Bishop that night with the youth in our ward, left me slightly slighted. But that Bishop made sure not to have me forgotten - He had a picture taken with Kyle and then also was sure to get an autograph for me to be brought home.
Kyle plays here in Texas on a D League team and he gave Del some extra tickets for us to be able to go to another one of his games tonight. I'm looking forward to it - maybe I'll get my own picture taken with him...
Maybe.