Hyde Park » Night after night, Mario Durrant pored over the thick handbook, learning how to conduct services, how to handle interviews, how to provide welfare aid -- how, in short, to be an LDS bishop.

Finally, his wife, Karla Durrant, half-jokingly asked, "Isn't there one for me?"

Nope. There is no detailed church manual telling a Mormon bishop's wife how to shoulder all the child care when her husband is in endless meetings, how to support her spouse as he juggles a career and a seemingly full-time church assignment, how to be a role model without acting as if she has been appointed mother of the ward.

"Everybody knew I wasn't perfect," Karla recalls.

Clarity about her new role as the bishop's wife -- which began a year ago this month -- came only when she followed her grandfather's advice, passed down through her mother, Blanding resident Renee Pincock.

Crack open the LDS scriptures, the advice went, to a revelation given to Emma Smith through her husband, church founder and prophet Joseph Smith and recorded in Doctrine & Covenants Section 25.

Emma, Karla found, was called to comfort her husband "in his afflictions, with consoling words."

"Grandpa Black said this should be the bishop's wife's handbook," Karla says.

The 41-year-old does put a pragmatic spin on her understanding of what that means for her, a bishop's spouse 180 years later:

"I just try not to be a naggy wife."

Busy Sundays

Indeed, the talent Karla brings to her role is a certain unflappability.

It shows on Sundays, when she acts, in essence, as the single mother of five children from dawn to dusk.

Mario leaves the house about 6:30 a.m. to begin a series of meetings with other Hyde Park First Ward leaders and members that precede and follow three hours of congregational services. He tries to make it home by 6:30 p.m., when Karla and the kids gather for a traditional Sunday dinner.

On a recent Sunday, Karla's no-fuss approach means no fancy hair for the girls, no starched white collars on the boys.

Alicia, 7, rakes a brush through her hair and calls it good. When Isaac, 5, walks into the chapel with his green shirttail out, Karla doesn't flinch. Her 10-year-old, Ian, wears a knit shirt with no tie.

She figures her children can decide when they are old enough to join in the 24-hour fast the first weekend of each month. "If they don't know what it means," she reasons, "it's just starvation."

So A.J., 14, and Audrey, 13, take part in the fast. The younger three are exempt.

Her friend Shelly Felix says Karla's calm derives from her strong "sense of self."

She's the kind of mother who laughs out loud -- and often -- with her children, Felix says. "She is who she is, and she's great with that. Things don't have to be perfect."

The role of bishop's wife, in LDS culture, is intertwined with the role of mother. With few exceptions, bishops are married and most have children, whether young or grown or in between. There are more than 28,400 Mormon wards or branches throughout the world, so that means there are nearly as many bishops' and branch presidents' wives.

The handywoman

Karla says her understanding of her role has grown in the past year.

Besides refraining from nagging -- it's not really her style, anyway -- she ensures there always is food ready so Mario has one fewer thing to worry about as he dashes from work to home to church Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings. He usually gets home after the kids are in bed those nights.

Mario, 38, a small-animal veterinarian who owns Cache Meadow Veterinary Clinic in North Logan, says that when he comes home preoccupied, she gently will steer him into conversation that takes his mind off whatever is vexing him.

"She'll surprise me with my favorite cookie," he says. "Her great talent, as a mom, is to be low anxiety. I'll come home from work and she'll be doing something with the kids totally unaware of the time."

For instance, he might find his wife and the kids in the backyard, roasting hot dogs or marshmallows over an open fire. "She loves to have cookouts."

He is into gardening, canning and baking pies -- he had a warm rhubarb pie for a friend cooling on the counter on Monday, his day off -- while she is into home-improvement projects.

She tiled the kitchen and dining room, resurfaced the cabinets and, at present, is replacing the worn lumber on the family deck.

"I like physical labor and changing something ugly into something beautiful," Karla says. Besides, she adds, smiling, "he's not a handyman, and somebody's got to do it."

There often is music in the home. She plays the piano, guitar, horn and, as friend Felix puts it, "a mean accordion."

Karla often plays the latter in nursing homes since "they're the ones that truly appreciate it."

Mario and Karla love to read and often do so together, the passenger reading a book aloud to the driver when they are on the road.

A.J. and Audrey roll their eyes at the memory, but the couple recall the kick they got out of reading the first Twilight book together.

"We both hated it," Mario says, "but it was fun to make fun of."

Positive thinking

Mario recalls what drew him to Karla in the first place: an ability to laugh at herself.

A Blanding native, Karla had attended Ricks College (now Brigham Young University-Idaho) in Rexburg, served a mission to Indiana, went to BYU in Provo and graduated from Utah State University when he first saw her at a young-adult ward retreat at Sherwood Hills south of Logan.

People were telling embarrassing stories, and Karla told a whopper involving a stage curtain, a tipped chair and ending with Karla and her horn on the floor.

"She stood there with such confidence," Mario remembers. "I said, 'I have to talk to her.' "

Mario, a Wellsville native, was a student at USU at the time and a returned missionary who had served in Chile.

They married and moved to Fort Collins, Colo., while he was in vet school. They moved back to Cache Valley after he graduated 12 years ago.

Karla says she knew even before she married Mario that her life was likely to entail sacrifice of her husband's time and attention. Hers is a church, after all, that relies on a lay clergy.

Mario was a stake high councilman before becoming a bishop last year.

"We don't have as much time, but it's better quality time," Karla says. "We have to make sure to plan things if they're going to happen."

She considers it a particular blessing to have her husband as bishop while she has teenagers, since so much of a bishop's work is with youths.

She knows there are women who grumble about the church's demands on their husbands. "It's easy for a wife to feel resentful, to look for the negative rather than the positive."

But when she is tempted to feel the sting of Mario's absence, she reminds herself of this: "I always know, if he had a choice, he'd be home."

Family Home Evening, which the Durrants, like many Mormons, observe every Monday, is a saving grace, she says, especially now that Mario is busier than ever.

The parents and children have a scripture lesson, discuss family and school issues and play games. If the weather is blustery, as it was this past Monday, the family plays Ping-Pong in the basement.

"She usually beats me," Mario says.

This night is no different as the two play a ferociously fast last game of the night.

Final score: Karla 21, Mario 12.