The Perils of Going to your Home Ward Well After You are Married:

• No one can remember my 'new' last name.
  
• The ward gossips think Trev and I have marital problems because we have to live with my parents. This is actually quite funny.
  
• I'm not quite considered an adult because most the 'adults' in the ward served as young women advisers or Sunday School teachers at some point in my adolescence. Even though I'm almost finished with my Master's Degree and have a baby coming in July, I'm a perpetual laurel in the collective imagination of my ward.
• Ward leaders still think I have the same talents I did in high school. Recent conversation: Enrichment Leader calls me and asks "Shelley - could you sing a song at Enrichment?" Me: "Uh, NO. I haven't sung in public for at least four years." EL: "Yes, but you can sing." Me: "No, no, I really cannot. I used to sing - in high school. I don't anymore. I don't think I could possibly do this." EL: "What if I get you an accompanist, and three other people to sing with you?" Me: She really doesn't believe me. She's not going to take no for an answer. "Well, I'll try, Sister So-and-So." No one knows I used to sing except my home ward.
• No one talks to Trevor and I, unless it's to ask something about my family. This is not out of unkindness. I think it's out of social awkwardness. And it's not like I was a very pleasant teenager. I was not easy in Sunday School. I know I has a hassle for the Young Womens. I would ask annoying questions like "How could anyone KNOW that?!" and "Well, I just don't believe what you just said." The kind of stuff I still think, but have learned not to voice in Relief Society or Sunday School. So I suppose I don't blame them.

We're in nursery now, and I absolutely love it. It's the best calling I've ever had. I'm learning a lot about little children, I get to spend all Sunday with Trevor, and *bonus!* we get snack time. My social anxieties about going to church have dramatically lessened. And there's one adorable little boy in the nursery that's making me less afraid to have a boy, and that has made the calling really a blessing.