We need to be seen and heard

 Last week was our ward conference.  Tony was assigned to go on a ministering visit with the Stake Sunday School President.  He hasn't had very positive experiences in the past and was really frustrated and negative.  I suggested that we pray and find out who God wanted him to visit.  After our prayer, the idea came to me to ask my new Spanish teacher Gladys Rivas.  Gladys is an Argentinian, single, pioneer in the gospel.  Her experience here in this ward has been painful and she no longer attends.  She probably has a lot to teach us about being more inclusive like Jesus.  Tony and the Stake Sunday School president met at the church so Tony could prep him on the visit purpose, and Gladys and I started our Spanish lesson in the kitchen.  When they arrived, Tony started our meeting with prayer and then immediately asked Gladys to share her story.  She was honest and raw and vulnerable.  She has been mistreated, minimized and dismissed as an equal disciple in this church.  After her honesty, imagine the horror Tony and I felt when the Stake Sunday school president launched into a call to repentance.  Without hearing her, he expressed a weird "I love you, sister" message and then tried to related to her experience with one of his own.  It fell like a lead balloon and sucked the spirit out of the room,  Both Tony and my attempts to turn the attention back to learning from Gladys were ineffective.  The  SS Pres just kept inviting repentance and asserting his agenda.  

After they left, I was shaking with rage.  I felt confusion and betrayal.  I wrestled with it all night and processed the experience with Tony, my parents and friends.  Finally I woke up one morning with clarity about what had felt so terrible.  The SS Pres had simply misused priesthood authority.  As SS Pres he had no authorized keys to call Gladys to repentance.  He was neither her Stake President, Bishop or minister.  Those three people alone hold priesthood authority given by Jesus Christ over Gladys'.  As a guest in our home, Tony and I held the united authority over  the SS President and probably should have been more forthright in asking him to cease and desist.  

I'm grateful for the lesson I learned from this experience and hope I do a better job of acknowledging correct lines of authority.  I have been the SS President before and have been out of line.  I also need to stand up against misuses and abuses of authority.  Mostly I need to study the Saviors priesthoods, hierarchal