Change is Hard.

Change is hard.  For some people, it is much harder than for others.

The Church has done some restructuring in our area to better serve the Young Single Adult population.  As a result, our ward has been assigned to a different building than the one that has forever been the 5th Ward building.  It was built as the 5th Ward building.  Most of the youth in our ward were blessed there as babies.  There is a lot of history in that building, and it is no longer the 5th Ward building.  This hasn't sat well with some of the congregation.  Change is hard.

I read the book of Omni today.  It's quite an interesting little book.  It's only 30 verses long, yet it has four authors.  All but the last of the four, Amaleki, only wrote a few verses each - mostly bearing witness that the previous author had written with his own hand and that there wasn't much more to write.  Amaleki, however, wrote of Mosiah., who was warned by the Lord to flee the land of Nephi.  He took as many people as would "also hearken unto the voice of the Lord".

I was wondering, as I read this, if the people murmured much when they were asked to leave.  I was also thinking about our ward changing buildings.  There were some people that were quite upset about the move.  The funny thing is, the new building is less than half a block away from the old building.  What if we had been told to go to a building in a different town?  What if, like Mosiah, we had to flee into the wilderness?  Would there be people who would stay behind because change is too hard?

The Old and the New

After Mosiah and his people had traveled for some time, they came across a group of people in the land called Zarahemla.  Amaleki doesn't talk about the feelings of Mosiah and his people when they came across this group.  Were they worried that the people of Zarahemla were hostile?  They had faced much hostility to this point - how would they know if these people were friendly?  He only recorded that "there was great rejoicing among the people of Zarahemla...because the Lord had sent the people of Mosiah with the plates of brass which contained the record of the Jews."(Omni 1:14)

When the bishop announced the change in Sacrament Meeting last week, one of my little girls was very worried.  "Will the people be nice?"  She didn't quite understand that all the people would be the same.  She was nervous, even yesterday morning, after we had explained what was really happening.  Change is hard.  During testimony meeting, there was much talk of the new building.  Some were excited for change, and some were not very excited at all.  It was announced that one of the young men in our ward had received his mission call, and one of the members wisely noted, "And so it begins.  The history of the Providence 5th Ward in our new building."

Unlike Mosiah and his people, our move was not to a foreign place with foreign people.  The building may have been different, but the people were the same.  The most comforting and wonderful thing about the gospel, to me, is that no matter where you go - whether it be down the street or to a far off land - the organization of the church is the same.  There will still be Sacrament Meeting and Relief Society, Primary and Sunday School.  The rooms may look different, but no matter where we are, we are all being taught the same things.

Change may be hard, but it can also bring incredible blessings.  Blessings to us and those around us, if we are willing to adapt.  There can be "great rejoicing" among us, if we remember that.

Click here to read what I read today!