Good afternoon sisters. What a wonderful Ward Conference we had. Our Relief Society speakers were great also. Enjoy the messages.
THOUGHT: “We must ...get our teachers to speak out of their hearts rather than out of their books, to communicate their love for the Lord and this precious work, and somehow it will catch fire in the hearts of those they teach.” “This is our objective—to have love of God and commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ 'catch fire' in the hearts of those we teach.”
Gordon B Hinckley
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
- March Preparedness: Get together with your family and come up with an emergency plan that will work for you.
- The building will be closed on Tuesday and Thursday evenings so that you can attend your caucus meetings.
- Stake Technology Day – Saturday March 17th from 9 am-noon at the Manila Building. To register, visit http://pgtechday.eventbrite.com/.
- RS Birthday Celebration “Circled in Something Extraordinary “. All Relief Society Sisters are invited to come and enjoy a delicious dinner and listen to our guest speaker while we enjoy each others' company. Tuesday March 29th at 6:30 pm at the Manila Chapel (by the blue silos and pond). If you have lived somewhere outside of Utah and would like to bring a dish from that area to share, please let Melissa Brady know: 801-628-4635 or mbrady73@yahoo.co. Please come even if you don't bring anything. You are so important to us.
- Please take a moment and send your spotlight information to Julie Glenn at jcglen@live.com. Include places you have lived, information about your family, your hobbies, your favorite scripture and how it has helped you in your life, and anything else you can think of. Even if you have lived here forever, the new sisters don't know anything about you.
- Because of General Conference and Easter in April, Fast Sunday will be on April 15th, the 3rd Sunday.
- SINGLE ADULT FHE: (31+) Monday March 12, 2012, 7 pm at the Manilla Stake enter. The speaker will be Brother George D Durrant. Refreshments will be served.
BIRTHDAYS: 12th – Amy Smart and 13th – Rebecca Poulsen. Happy Birthday sisters.
UPDATE ON SHARON BACKMAN: We want to thank each of you for all your caring and prayers, your kindness and visits. Sharon is not doing well. Hospice is trying to make her as comfortable as possible. Please continue to keep her and Brother Backman in your prayers.
Mona Porter, Stake RS second counselor:
It's a pleasure to be here. It is great to be among people who feel the spirit. Your visits with Sister Backman is an experience you won't forget. I had that opportunity with both my mother and mother-in-law. It is a sacred experience. I've seen the love of Christ thru them and the people showing loved to them. I have a testimony of that.
Sacrament meeting was wonderful. I read the bulletin and wondered why you hadn't plan a special musical number, but the choir was amazing I felt the spirit of the Lord. I never cry, but the tears just come from seeing the people that I love and hearing the beautiful music which brings the spirit at every meeting.
'Charity never faileth' is the theme of Relief Society, the motto. It was inspired to be so. It is the one thing that is required of us. If we have the pure love of Christ, we will do all the things that is needful if we have that pure love in our hearts. Charity will always succeed. I love how your Bishop said that it will never fail to bring happiness in this life and to qualify us for Eternal Life. Not only for ourselves but for our families.
I noted also that President Cooper said that there is a price we pay for charity. We desire and seek after it; we pray for it. We ask, we seek through the scriptures, our leaders. Sometimes we feel we are too busy to do our asking, our seeking, but we need to ask Heavenly Father for it. Ask for the spirit to be pour down to us because as women we wear too many hats and have the need for the Lord to bless us in our many responsibilities and challenges.
The main thing is that it will be a good thing for us to have when we stand before the Lord at the second coming or at death. When we die, it will be important to have lived each day with charity. If we can have prayer and charity be a routine in our lives it will be a key to keep us safe from discouragement which is from Satan. Charity works in a circle. We have the love of Christ which is center on the Atonement. He gives us hope, a purpose for living through we may have many tests, but his loves influences our love for others and as we serve others, we feel the love of Christ more.
I am grateful for the gospel, the true church, to guide our lives, to uphold us from the depth of despair.. The pure love of Christ will help keep us safe, worthy to have the love of God in our heart.
Elder Ashton said: “Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn’t handle something the way we might have hoped. Charity is refusing to take advantage of another’s weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us. Charity is expecting the best of each other”
It is so easy to slip, to judge, but as President Cooper said in Sacrament Meeting, we need to remember that everyone is a child of Heavenly Father. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Megan Duckworth, RS President:
I love that quote; there is depth and power in it. I feel very hypercritical today because of the time change and getting after my family to get to church on time. I wasn't very nice to them. I love this book, love, love it. (Daughters in My Kingdom) For help with the topic “Charity never Faileth”, I went to chapter ten. On page 171 of Daughters in My Kingdom we read:
In one of the first meetings of the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, Joseph Smith admonished the sisters to “live up to [their] privilege.”1 With that encouragement as a foundation, sisters in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been taught to live up to their divine potential by fulfilling God’s purposes for them. As they come to understand who they really are—God’s daughters, with an innate capacity to love and nurture—they reach their potential as holy women. With charity in their hearts, they fulfill the purposes of Relief Society: to increase faith and personal righteousness, strengthen families and homes, and seek out and help those in need.”
“The Lord has endowed women with an Innate desire to serve and bless others, and He has entrusted them with a sacred responsibility to use their gifts to help save His children.”
First, let's consider some of the definitions of the word innate: “existing in one from birth, an instinct that is not learned, and being talented through inherited qualities.” My absolute favorite definition is the last one. As women, we have inherited the capacity and desire to be charitable from our Heavenly Parents. They taught and instructed us in the ways of charity before the world was even created.
In the book DIMK, were phrases that were used: innate desire and innate capacity to love and nurture and to serve and bless others. I love that. Women are blessed with the desire and the capacity to be charitable.
Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of “who we are”. There is a great pressure on women in the world today to “have it all” and to “be it all”. Many women strive to reach “worldy” goals that may only bring temporary happiness to them. However, Sister Julie Beck reminds us that true joy and happiness come when we know that we are “aligned behind the Lord's plan” for each one of us.
When I was younger, my parents almost always said the same thing to me when I left our house: “Remember who you are.” When I was a teenager, it got to the point where my parents just had to hold up one finger, and I knew what it meant. J This powerful statement was a reminder to me that my actions would always reflect upon my Pennington family name. It was a reminder to ask myself: “Is what I am doing bringing honor to my parents and to my ancestors? The statement also had eternal implications. I was being urged by my parents to remember that I was also a daughter of Heavenly Parents. I was being encouraged to remember that my actions would also reflect the level of my understanding of my divine nature.
Remembering who we are is critical. I feel that it is equally as important for us as women to remember that our “divine plans” are unique. We should not compare our abilities or accomplishments to the abilities and accomplishments of others. We should not expect others to do things as we do. We should pray to know how to follow the divine path that our Heavenly Father wants us to take.
I have felt impressed to share an experience with you about a sister that I know who understands her divine nature as evidenced by a gift of charitable service that she gave to me. I received a letter from this sister at a time in my life when I was experiencing physical and emotional distress. I would like to share a portion of the letter with you:
“the other day I washed the sheets on my bed and had a major meltdown With all my heart I wanted to offer to wash your bedding in hopes that crawling into a clean bed might somehow offer you comfort and help you to sleep better. I'd do anything to give you the gifts of comfort and rest right now. Let me know if I can get both of our washers going Monday or whenever you feel ready to let me serve you. It was just an idea. I”d be happy to do anything you may need done.”
This dear sister came and laundered the bedding from my bed as well as the bedding from my childrens rooms. She did provide comfort and rest to me and to my whole family. Through her charitable act of inspired service, I felt the love of Heavenly Father for me in such a real and profound way.
On page 172 in DIMK Elder M. Russell Ballard said: “We believe in and are counting on your goodness and your strength, your propensity for virtue and valor, your kindness and courage, your strength and resilience. We believe in your mission as women of God. … We believe that the Church simply will not accomplish what it must without your faith and faithfulness, your innate tendency to put the well-being of others ahead of your own, and your spiritual strength and tenacity.”
The church and kingdom need each one of you. You can make such a difference in people's lives by being charitable. As women, we can richly bless our own families with our innate gift of charity. We can also bless other families and individuals with this sacred gift through visiting teaching.
There is a wonderful article in this month's Ensign (March 2012) about visiting teaching. If you haven't had a chance to read through it and study it, please do. Please note the changes about visiting teaching.
Recently I received a very sweet email from Sister Sharon Backman’s oldest daughter Kris. Kris lives out of state and had a delightful visit with Sharon right before Sharon fell. Kris and the rest of her extended family are so very thankful for the charitable service that has been provided by ward members for Sharon and Milt in recent weeks. One of the comments in her email had a profound impact on me. Kris wrote: “I am so grateful for the gospel which gives us brothers and sisters all over the world who love us because they love Christ.” How true that is!
In DIMK on p. 174 Henry B. Eyring states:
“This society is composed of women whose feelings of charity spring from hearts changed by qualifying for and by keeping covenants offered only in the Lord’s true church. Their feelings of charity come from Him through His Atonement. Their acts of charity are guided by his example-and come out of gratitude for His infinite gift of mercy-and by the Holy Spirit, which He sends to accompany His servants on their missions of mercy.”
Sisters, it is my prayer that each one of us may understand our divine nature. This knowledge can empower us and enable us to reach out and serve others. I also pray that we can continue in our dedication as visiting teachers, taking the higher path. As we act on our innate desire to serve others, we will develop an even greater understanding of the power of the Atonement in our lives.
President Cooper of the Stake Presidency:
I am always grateful to visit with the sisters in Ward Conference, and during temple recommend interviews. It is a great blessing to be in a church who values women. It helps us to realize that potential. I just got done visiting with the youth. It used to be that all the Stake Presidency would attend every ward conference, but a general authority told us we were going to wear ourselves out, so now every auxiliary president goes where the Stake President goes, ever4y first counselor goes with the first counselor of the Stake presidency and etc. Anyway, I just spoke to the youth and it is interesting to speak to the youth women.
Heavenly Father loves the sisters. Every body needs to know how important and valuable they are. I love the Young Women theme. It teaches them who they are, that Heavenly Father loves them as they exercise faith, pray and trust in Him. As they learn the gospel, they will know who they are, that they have a divine nature. All the values build upon the other. As they know their divine nature, they will have individual worth, then knowledge, and they will have no fear in their accountability as they make good choices. We can all rise above the challenges of the day. There are lots of distraction for the sisters, for all women. It is a blessing to have apostles, prophets, leaders.
Sometimes it's about the same old stuff, but somebody has to remind us of the important things. In his talk, Elder Carl B Cook told about his feelings of insecurity as a General Authority. How his head was down while in the elevator, staring blankly at the floor. The door opened and someone came in and asked him what was he looking at down there. It was President Monson. He said, oh, nothing. President Monson smiled and said, pointing heavenward, “It is better to look up”
Prophets teach us what we need to know, the truth. Ward Conference allow us to come and be reminded of the truths. Of who we really are. Wherever we may be.
I want to tell you what Relief Society means to me. I want to share an honorable experience with you. When I was growing up in Kentucky there were few Mormons and I developed a sense of being me. I came from a family of twelve children. There was a real motive to be true to self. I wanted to be a good Cooper, a good Mormon. President Kimball said that every worthy young man should serve a mission, then after a mission, he should get married, and have a family.
I finished my mission, got married and while in school start having a family. My gross income was gross, not good and I thought why pay tithing. Our first child was born at a birthing center, natural childbirth. I had watched a film with my wife about child birth and it didn't look very exciting. However, at the actual birth of our daughter, when I could see the head crowning, it was the most wonderful experience I could have dad. It was indeed a miracle. Our second pregnancy, when we saw the ultra sound, we could see that there were two babies. Twins. How exciting. Then the question for me was how would we pay for it? There was so much stress. Then because they were twins, she would have to go to the hospital for the births. Her water broke, we drove to the hospital and it was different than the first delivery. After the birth of the babies, she said that she couldn't breath. I thought my wife was dying as the nurse got the equipment ready to give her oxygen. She was having a panic attack after giving birth to 8 lb 2 oz and 8 lb 13 oz babies. These panic attacks were happening a lot and I could go to work without worry about her. A sister in the apartment complex said that she could take care of my wife. What a wonderful blessing, what comfort and relief.
Everyone wants to be loved and respected. We as members of the church can love and respect one another. Can lift and encourage . I am grateful for the gospel and for repentance. You are truly daughters of a Heavenly Father who loves you. And you have the love of the Stake Presidency.
Next weeks lesson is #6 “Sustaining Those Whom the Lord Sustains.”
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