Trying to Be Patient. How am I doing??

Andrew went down to Girls Camp last night leaving me with the three youngest. Adria was already there and greatly anticipating having her Bishop/Dad arrive. For her this is one(probably the only!) perk to having a dad as the bishop. Adria LOVES girls camp and was excited to share this with Andrew.

I, on the other hand, am trying to be patient. So far, the kids have been great, but this is the second time in a month that Andrew has been away from home overnight. His two weeks in Europe were stressful for all of us. Two more days and nights on the heels of the first trip just doesn't seem fair. Which always lends to guilt, since the first trip was for work and the second for church. It's not like he's gone off on some pleasure trip and left me behind. He does have to sleep on a cot without AC, after all.

All of this brings me to the whole Bishop thing. Needless to say, it has been an adjustment. Andrew is gone two nights a week and all day Sunday and sometimes much of Saturday depending on if there is a baptism, ward or stake activity, etc. Andrew teaches on Wednesday nights so I have him home on Monday and Friday evenings. I am glad that our stake president told Andrew to only be gone two nights a week at the most and if it couldn't be done then it could wait. In retrospect, this was great advice. I think it encourages delegation. There is always something else to do and it would be easy for him to never be home. Our schedule has eased up a bit with summer. Thank goodness.

Suddenly being without that extra partner is hard. Elder Douglas Callister spoke to the bishops and wives at a recent stake conference. He reminded the wives that we wanted a good husband and we got them. This reminded me that I wanted a husband who would honor his priesthood, I got one and now I needed to support him. Elder Callister wasn't implying that it wouldn't be hard, but that we needed to be patient. I think that was the best advice this new bishop's wife could get.

So I will continue trying to be patient all the while eagerly anticipating his homecoming.