I spent the last year as the activities chair in my ward. Yes, I know that calling was discontinued over a year ago. That means I’m not on the ward council, but being in a singles ward I guess they decided it was a good idea to have someone to plan stuff fulltime.
I’m not really a party person. When I plan things I aim for safety and efficiency, not fun. Its been a long year but I’ve learned a great deal from it and developed a few talents along the way. I’m still not fun necessarily but at least I can set the stage for other people to have fun while I stress about finding a table to put 80 donuts on.
I’m moving out of my ward this week, that’s the only way you can be assured of getting released. (I’m not moving out just to get released). So as I approached the final ward activity of the semester and of my tenure I wanted to make a splash. I am not a party person. It always bothered me that my purpose was to plan parties. So I wanted to make this one different. I decided to turn it into an analogy. I took up the amazing race idea. We would split into 8 teams and fan across campus looking for clues. The clues would lead us to more clues and eventually lead to a final place on campus where we would watch our end of year slideshow and eat donuts.
Then I had an idea, a wonderful awful idea. I would put the clues in a loop, so all eight teams would just be running around in one large circle. I would then give each team one piece of the final puzzle. The only way to find all eight pieces would be to talk to all eight teams. By nature the teams would be competitive but I would leave quotes about cooperation on every hint to try and get them to think about what they were doing. I would forcibly teach my competitive ward that winning was less important than getting everyone to the finish line.
It was raining.
I think the plan worked.
Well, I had to soften things a little bit. There were a few people that were late so I told them where to meet us. They told the first people they met where the end location was. So the first couple of teams trickled in because they found people that told them how to get there. Someone started stealing clues so teams started getting lost. One clue was hidden at shoelace level and no one was able to find it without me telling them where to look. After an hour my phone started ringing like crazy as frustrated people begged for better hints. They called each other as well and soon the word of our location leaked out illegally to the entire ward.
As I quieted the room I inquired if anyone had figured out the final clue. All eighty people had found our theater without ever finding all the clues. They had all found it another way. Only two people had figured out, too late, that they were supposed to work together. Very few people read the quotes. I gave them a brief lecture on the importance of cooperation in which they fell completely silent for about 5 seconds. The rest of the time someone was talking.
We then went ahead with donuts and picture slideshows.
I received the usual comments of gratitude which come after every activity regardless of how well it goes. I think the analogy was sound. As I have pondered it over these few days I have found a great deal of truth hidden in it but I have also seen my own weakness in communicating that point to my wardlings. I do not think they understood. I fear the point was lost.
Competition terrifies me because of what it does to us. We use it so heavily to drive us to become better, stronger, faster than our brothers and sisters. But that isn’t the point of life. We are supposed to become better, stronger, faster than our lesser selves. “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” Eccl 9:11
Well my dear ward, I want us to all make it. I have given you what strength I had and tried to teach you something of value about this mortal experience. I hope that in spite of my weakness and arrogance you are able to find something of celestial significance in what I have done. I hope I didn’t make you run around in circles on a rainy Wednesday night for nothing, although I hear the donuts were worth it.
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