What to do when the leaders don't show up?

Today when I got to the Relief Society people were asking me: "are you teaching the class?" "Not that I know." I said. Because neither the Relief Society President, counselors or the secretary were there. They all had issues with sick children and who knows what but not one of four of these women had come to church today. So before I had time to process what I needed to teach, the Sunday School teacher said, I'll do it! She is one lady who you can depend on for sure! She gave the lesson, I was asked to give the opening prayer, Cindi took care of the translation and we were set to go.


This ward of Piantini is one of the best put together wards and in fact I met a woman who had decided to attend our ward because she thought her ward was too unorganized, how ironic to find herself with this situation on her first day when it has never happened before. Sure one of the presidency is not there but all four of them? It is not the norm and I am sure it won't happen again. What I learned from this experience is:
One, that someone will pull through and it will all work out.
Two, we need to be better prepared to teach if we have to.
Three, if not ready, pretend to be and do your best the way this woman did. I am glad she volunteered because for one minute it looked like they were depending on me and I was not ready one bit.


The class couldn't be more perfect because it was about our testimony of the book of Mormon. Not a hard topic at all and one we are so familiar. I was asked with some other six women in the room to give my testimony of this wonderful book that I decided to read to cover to cover when I was 20 because before that it was more like little bit here and little bit there. I will never forget how excited I was to read it as fast as I could for a Book of Mormon Institute class I was taking and it seemed that I was the only person who had not read the Book of Mormon. I felt the pressure to get it done super fast and I think it only took me about 10 days to read it all. Amazing the things you do when you are under pressure.