There's a young single man in our church congregation. I admire his confidence attending all ward activities (including the Halloween Trunk or Treat) because I admit it can be hard to be single in a family ward and feel like you completely belong. I say this because he also came to the ward Christmas party. From my 2 years in the ward, gathering from the comments he's made in class & testimonies he's given, it's my opinion that he's not the most socially suave. In fact, he's a bit fringe. I've found myself getting a little nervous or cringe when he speaks, but in each of those circumstances, he's brought his message back to something uplifting and acceptable enough that I relax.
I was chatting with Mikki and Saramarie, when it was brought to our attention that we should probably go find a table for dinner. I hadn't even thought about it, but there indeed have been times where it was tricky to find a place to sit. Lucky for me, Pat had gone into the gym with the boys ahead of time and secured a table for us. Lydia was off sitting with the youth, but even with 6 family members left, we fill at least half a table. I no longer feel like nervous knot in my stomach because even if no one sits near us, we appear to be fine on our own. It's boring I'll admit just sitting with Pat and the kids at a ward function (no new conversation... it's just like family dinner at home except harder!)
I looked around the room, scrolling through my imaginary attendance roll to see who had shown up and who was missing from what I "expected." And there he was, so heartbreakingly obvious: Eric N sitting completely alone at a table in the corner. Oh my gut wrenched. Pat saw it too and grimaced. Surely every single person in the room saw the wrongness of Eric sitting there alone: no other seat even touched. As the minutes ticked by I plead and waiting for someone to sit with him. Surely the other tables with only one awkward couple would join hi or invite him over! But no. It got worse and worse. Imagine my relief with young Brother Shumway (new the the ward) walked over holding his new baby to chat with Eric. Phew! It was all going to be ok! But no, after a few minutes, they shared a friendly goodbye and Bro Shumway was back to his family table leaving Eric alone. Again.
While all this mental anguish was going on, I looked up to see Amber Farmer and her new fiance doing that same "glance around the room for somewhere to sit, hoping that you see someone you know" going on for a little longer than I was confortable. I knew she was friendly (from when we all had dinner at the Danforths) and I couldn't stand to watch them look around one moment longer, so I waved them over to join us. She smiled and seemed relieved as she exclaimed, "someone I know!" We re-introduced ourselves (because it turns out we had forgotten each others names). But I felt very good inside to had them sit with us. It turns our they were fun to talk to and I very much enjoyed getting to know her and her fiance more.
Yer another seating fiasco was going on with the youth. Apparently there were just a few too many youth to sit comfortably at a table. Who to kick out? Gosh, what a mess. And having a bunch of teenagers figure it out was not working very well. Heidi was at our table and I could tell she felt left out. Why was she not sitting at the "youth" table? I got up and basically whispered in Lydia's ear that she had to find a way to include Heidi. Even as I was walking over, the youth boys decided to go sit at another table, leaving more than enough seats available for Heidi to join. Normally I wouldn't make such a fuss, but after inviting Amber Farmer and her finace to sit with us, there were no more seats at our table to invite Eric N. I could not stand for that. For the betterment of everyone, I kicked Heidi out of our family table, insisting that she sit with the youth, thus opening up a vacency at our table. I was pretty fired up from discussion seating with Lydia and Heidi (who were not privy to my plans). I walked straight over to Eric and confidently announced, "We have an open spot at our table. Will you join??" With which he responded with a shrug and a "well, why not?" I walked him over to our table, showed him wear to sit, and then went to the food line to find Pat and help Chase get his dinner.
Overall it went well. I asked lots of questions and kept conversation flowing. I thought I did pretty well attempting to bring the conversation back to a diversified conversation when Eric started monologuing about civil war historical figures our breaking out in song (#truth).
I felt proud of myself that I followed my gut, because it's very rare that I reach out to people like that! I was even prouder when I heard later that Lydia had ended up leaving the youth table to go sit with 3 sibings that had come late to the dinner and were sitting by themselves. They're not normally in the "core" group and so for Lydia to do that, I thought that was big of her. A couple other YW followed her to that table, so it worked out for everyone. :)
Our boys sang with the primary. My friend Carrie Luker taught them Once There Was a Snowman on French and Away in a Manger in Bulgarian, which is where she served her mission. They did such a good job; I'm proud on my boys.
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