Two Fires

This is the fire pit I built for my bishop in my backyard.
He wanted to have a party for all the new families in our ward— I think this desire took him by surprise— anyway, he didn’t plan it much, he just asked at church on Sunday if we would have it at our house on Friday.
I tried to figure it out. What did he want? How many people were we feeding? He said he thought six or seven families. Probably. He said he didn’t want me to micro-engineer this. (?) I said ok, but does that mean no planning at all? Can we get a firmer idea of how many people? It turned out to be twenty new families and about that many again of the ward officers he wanted the new people to meet.
The party was announced in Priesthood and Relief Society.

I talked to the Relief Society presidency.
We made plans, we discussed them, we discarded them. They asked what I was going to do when it snowed? I told them the bishop checked the weather forecast on his iphone at church and it wasn't supposed to snow.

I decided to make it all desserts, just massive sugar offerings, and fires to stay warm by, since we would be staying outside. The bishop said he didn’t want this to impact my house at all.
Hmm.
I needed to build another fire pit.

On Friday morning the snow forecasts got serious. People started calling me. What are we doing now, since it's going to snow? I asked my bishop what the fallback plan was. He said, no fallback. He said, are you micro-engineering this? (Micro--?) He said the weather will be great. He waved his hand vaguely. Don’t think about it anymore, he said. Great weather, he said.
I called Bri. He texted his friend the bishop to ask what the fallback plan would be.
No fallback plan. Don't think about the weather anymore.
So I built another pit and got wood and made cookies and didn’t think about it. A seasoned friend said, the bishop doesn’t want you to plan this because he didn’t.

I sat for a while on my back steps looking at my firepits and thought about a lot of things. I thought about how I decide something is going to work out well or badly. I thought how it is I begin to worry about a possible future. I realized I had decided to feel that the bishop was going to be right. I would have the party as he had requested and just do whatever I could with whatever happened.



And we had the party and lots of people came. Great weather, as foretold.


It didn’t snow. It was lovely, really; not too cold to be outside, but only just.


Everyone kept right close to the fire to stay warm but no one burst into flame.



This is Saturday morning.


“I think Flexibility should be one of the Young Women’s virtues.”
--Cassandra Barney