PXL_20201202_203117292-scaled
Picture of Guest Post
Guest Post
Exponent II features the work of guest authors writing about issues related to Mormonism and feminism. Submit a guest post Write for Exponent II.

Guest Post: Being Released from my Calling Because of the Pandemic

Guest Post by Piper Anderson

I was released as Young Womens president, because I found myself in a sort of catch-22 caused by Covid-19. Guest Post: Being Released from my Calling Because of the Pandemic

I have believed for decades that young women should be doing activities that are on-par in cost and time investment with activities the boys do. I’ve been lucky during my time as young women president to have bishops that agreed with me on that subject so we’ve been able to do lots of good exciting things.

The primary trouble I faced most often was my own lacking experience. Having never done high adventure activities myself as a youth, figuring out how to do those things was a barrier we had to overcome in providing those activities to the girls.

However, this year we’re in a global pandemic and my bishop and I no longer saw eye to eye. He felt that the youth needed more activities, bigger activities, and zero online activities.

He doesn’t see the pandemic as a big threat and, admittedly, lots of teens are currently starved for interaction. Zoom fatigue is real, and it is hard to generate engaging activities done at home over a video call. He felt that the ‘home-centered, church-supported’ catchphrase was missing the ‘church support’ without substantial, in-person activities. 

On the other hand, I do see the pandemic as a big threat. I thought the ‘church support’ could be provided to the youth with care packages, personalized attention, facilitating online interaction, and *maybe* a few carefully planned outdoor activities while case numbers were low. 

This diverging worldview is how I ended up being responsible for the girls playing Scattergories over Zoom while the boys went on campouts, go-karting and similar activities. If I could have changed his mind I would have.

Guest Post: Being Released from my Calling Because of the Pandemic
A still shot from a video tutorial on medieval braiding I put together for the Young Women

There were a few activities where I sent my less-cautious counselors to run activities without me, but I still felt awful about it. Here I was making plans and sending out emails encouraging parents to send their daughters to activities that I personally refused to attend because I didn’t think they were safe enough.

My options were to have the big activities and expose myself and the girls I loved to unacceptable levels of risk, or to insist on low-risk activities and be the cause of the exact sort of sexist imbalance that nearly drove me out of the church as a young adult.

I dropped all this on the Bishop’s lap a few months ago. He asked if I was requesting a release. I explained that I didn’t want to be released, but wanted to make sure he understood the way I saw things and the sort of conflict I was dealing with. I left it up to him. I was close to having been in the calling for the traditional three years, and planning for next year’s activities and Girls Camp was starting soon, so I was unsurprised when he opted to release me. 

I moped for a week or so when he let me know his decision, but was surprised how much it stung when it actually happened a few weeks later.

I really loved that calling, and I hate how it ended. 

Exponent II features the work of guest authors writing about issues related to Mormonism and feminism. Submit a guest post Write for Exponent II.

4 Responses

  1. Wow! What a terrible position you were put in. In my area, all church activities were cancelled except for those held over video-call or outdoors, and the outdoor activities were of short duration and small groups for a more controlled experience. Summer camp-outs and big group events were cancelled.

  2. You were put in a most impossible situation! I’m sure no matter what you did there would be unhappy people, and it wouldn’t ever feel right. Bleh. I’m so sorry!

  3. Sometimes doing what is right and letting the consequence follow stinks. I’m sad for you and your girls that it ended this way.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Our Comment Policy

  • No ads or plugs.
  • No four-letter words that wouldn’t be allowed on television.
  • No mudslinging: Stating disagreement is fine — even strong disagreement, but no personal attacks or name calling. No personal insults.
  • Try to stick with your personal experiences, ideas, and interpretations. This is not the place to question another’s personal righteousness, to call people to repentance, or to disrespectfully refute people’s personal religious beliefs.
  • No sockpuppetry. You may not post a variety of comments under different monikers.

Note: Comments that include hyperlinks will be held in the moderation queue for approval (to filter out obvious spam). Comments with email addresses may also be held in the moderation queue.

Write for Us

We want to hear your perspective! Write for Exponent II Blog by submitting a post here.

Support Mormon Feminism

Our blog content is always free, but our hosting fees are not. Please support us.

related Blog posts

We've been reading the Book of Mormon all year, but now we're taking that one step further and reading Mormon's book within the Book of Mormon, which is also called the Book of Mormon. Luckily, having two little books named Mormon compiled into a big book named Mormon is not confusing at all.
When blogger April Young-Bennett's cat died on her son's birthday, birthday plans were replaced with a pet funeral. But what could this mom say at the funeral? As an adult, she was questioning the comforting doctrines about the afterlife that soothed her back when she was a kid mourning her beloved first pet.

Never miss A blog post

Sign up and be the first to be alerted when new blog posts go live!

Loading

* We will never sell your email address, and you can unsubscribe at any time (not that you’ll want to).​