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Is it okay for Mormons to not accept church callings?

I have a funny story about my former bishop. He's the type of guy that wanted to be a bishop-to climb the priesthood ladder. A real jerk. He never wanted to look infallable so was always trying to cover his butt. Anyway, my DH was asked to be a scout leader and reluctantly accepted the calling. After about a month, he went to see the bishop to tell him that he just couldn't be a scout leader because of some really bad experiences he had as a boy in scouts. He was immediately released. A few months later I was in the bishop's office asking to be released from my callings and the bishop said, "You know Poopstone, when your husband asked to be released from his calling I immediately felt a comfirmation from the spirit that it was the right thing and with you I'm just not feeling that confirming spirit. I'm going to have to take it to the Lord." I'm sitting there thinking, "If you're so in tune with the spirit, why the hell did you call him in the first place!" He always acted like he was so righteous. He came across as the most fake person I'd met.

How's about the old 'ward greeters' calling? Was anyone else ever THAT highly esteemed? Then there was the nursery calling. My child was only about 10 months old or so. I told him I couldn't do it because I had to tend to my VERY ACTIVE child, and that DH couldn't watch him because of his calling teaching SS. He suggested that I let the 16 & 17 year olds watch him for me while I was in there. Yeah, I'm sure I'd do that with my first-born, as a still-nervous mom. I didn't even know any of them! I'm sure God had such a plan in mind. He was very pushy about it, and really angered me. I still turned it down.

After my first child was born, the bishopric decided that my wife and I should be teaching during the same hour of church. One of the counselors told me they were giving DH a calling in the primary while I was teaching in Sunday School. I looked at him and asked him who was supposed to be taking care of our new baby during that hour. He suggested my parents (who lived in the ward). I asked who was suppose to watch the baby when my parents were gone (about every six weeks). He suggested one of the primary presidency. I realized the hints weren't working so I said "Come on Doug. That isn't going to work." Now mind you, this is the ward I grew up in and he was the father of a girl that I grew up with. I kissed that daughter in a play as a teen. He scared me to death as a teen. He looked back at me and said "Yeah, you're right."

A few months back I had a conversation with a friend who was now the Stake YW pres. We were talking about this "Divine Insperation of callings". She shared with me that prior to her getting called as Stake YW Pres that she was "Called" to be her wards early morning seminary teacher. She went home and discussed this call with her husband. The next day she returned to talk to the stake pres about the calling and said that it would not work for her and her family. She shared with the SP that the reason why she couldn't do this was the following:

1. She had young children 4,8,15,17.

2. Her husband worked out of town during the week.

The stake president said that he was very dissapointed that she was turning this call down. He said that she needed to just "FIND A BABYSITTER" for her 8 and 4 year old or bring them to the church. AT 6am. NOT! Or leave them at home alone. It's only for an hour or so.

She was upset, however, this was not the icing on the cake yet. The next sunday, one of the high councillors came up to her and said how disgusted he was with the fact that she would turn down a calling from god. She looked at him and said that he had know clue on what the situation was like in the walls of her home. HC told her that he was impressed that she was the next seminary teacher and that his priesthood power was correct. (THE NERVE).

When I was called to be YW pres my kids were 5 and 2, dh works shiftwork so he wasn't around in the evenings to watch the kids. I hate to pay a babysitter if you do church stuff. Also, I just had my third child, I begged, threatened and finally ended up not being even able to do my calling because I had such a hard high risk pregnancy. The funny thing that the bishopbric said was, well, we know that you are in the hospital on bedrest, but you have a phone next to you. Just do your calling over the phone, plan camp... Was my blood ever boiling. DH finally exploded and that was that I was released. The ironic thing was that even though I had my baby 3 1/2 weeks early and I was released they still wanted me to drive 2 hours with my premie to camp to help out! Only a week after I delivered. What the hell?!

A couple of months back, the Bishop dropped by the house to call DW as the new YW president. He gave this whole dramatic speech about how he knew this is where the Lord wanted her to serve, how he'd been inspired to call her to the position, blah, blah, blah. After she accepted, he went to the stake president to request that DW be released from her rather minor calling as stake newspaper editor so she could serve as YW president. The stake president, despite much pleading and begging on the part of the Bish, absolutely refused to release her, claiming that it would be too difficult to find and train a replacement. So after his big speech, the Bishop had to come crawling back to DW and actually rescind the calling. The bish was completely rattled. DW was totally pissed. Meanwhile, I'm in the background with an evil glint in my eye, rubbing my hands together, and muttering "Eeexsellent" under my breath, because this little sequence of events really gave DW a big push along the path to partial NOMdom.

During my two years at the Lord's graduate business school, I was a studying maniac. I was valedictorian at my undergraduate college, and I would be damned if anyone else was going to do better than I in graduate school. For two years, I slept four hours a night, took NoDoz (no coffee because it would be against the WoW), and ran on adrenaline. During the last year my wife was pregnant with a very difficult pregnancy, throwing up on average a dozen times a day for the first six months, but being an insensitive slob (I've learned since then), I kept studying so I could graduate at the top of my class. My oldest child was born about two weeks before the end of the program. I got a job out of the area and got settled. Just as we were getting settled, I received a call from someone in the stake. He asked me to meet him at the church the next sunday. I did. Because the Lord told the stake president, whom I hadn't met, that I was the one to be a seminary teacher in our area, I was being called to be a seminary teacher. Oh, the best part was that they were going to pay me like $25 a week. I was of the mindset that I shouldn't be turning down callings, but I could not imagine why they would call me, a recent college grad at his first real job, with a little baby, to be a seminary teacher. I told him I would think about it. I went home and talked to my wife about it. I figured that it would cost me about four hours a day to do this. For me the calling would have been extremely stressful. My wife and I decided, that there was no way that this would work with our family situation. When I talked to the guy again, he asked me, "Are you going to serve the Lord or are you going to disappoint him?" Guilt trip.... I turned down the calling, gratefully.

I had an amazing meeting as SS pres with the primary pres and the bishop. The primary presidency had fasted and prayed about where to hold the sharing time portion of primary. They were concerned about it because we were the late ward and the kids would be extra fidgity late in the day. They all had received unanimous confirmation from the Holy Ghost that it should be in the chapel. Confidently she told the bishop that because the HG had directed them to have sharing time in the chapel, she wanted to work out the logistics for classrooms, etc. The bishop told her he had to think about it for a minute. He was quiet for a minute, then told her that the HG told him that wasn't correct. The PP started ranting about how his decision was a decision of a man and not inspired, blah, blah. He then went into defensive mode and started talking about how busy his law practice was (very relevant) as well as his calling as the bishop. She told him he was wrong, but if he wanted to decide something that was wrong based upon the wisdom of man, she would submit to his human decision. Then she got up and left. That was a very inspirational meeting.... As the crack in my TBM testimony grew larger and larger....

This sounds very much like what happened with our ward's YW Pres. a few years back, when I was a counselor in the bishopric. Her husband was getting an MBA in night school. He was also the ward mission leader, which took him away on other nights. Anyhow, YW Pres. brought her toddler son to YW with her, and he sat with the YW as they did whatever it is they do. When she had her second child, she asked not to be released, and she assured us that she could bring both of her kids to YW with her. During the bishopric discussion of her request, I said, "well, this whole thing about her bringing the boys to young womens raises an obvious question." The bishop shot back that her husband was in school and couldn't be expected to watch the kids while she did church stuff. She stayed in YW, and she brought the kids.