So, I gave my talk at church today. It went well thanks to Heavenly Father who answers our prayers! I was to speak last, and was originally told to speak for 20 minutes, so I thought that it might be a litter more, so I had extras to add on just in case. After the youth talk by a 16 yr old young man on integrity, who set the tone with the Spirit, an older sister spoke on the history of Relief Society. I loved how she gave the theme that each of the past presidents used. She got to Sister Beck, our current Gen Relief Society President, and that is where my talk began. I spoke on what Relief Society does to help us do what we need to do to get back to Heavenly Father. I had 10 minutes to speak, so I prayerfully, and quickly, chose the most important things from Sister Beck's interview to share with the congregation. I shared about remembering all the members in Relief Society and how Relief Society works. But, I posted my whole talk here so that I can remember it. I hope that it helps you learn what you can do to better yourself and your family, too:
Good Morning Brothers and Sisters. I am excited to stand before you and be able to speak to you on how the Relief Society focuses on The Lord’s Work of Salvation. Most of what I will share today comes from a recent interview with Julie B. Beck, the Gen Relief Society President, printed in this month’s issue of the Ensign. From this talk, I want you learn what the Relief Society is and how it helps you to accomplish God’s goal for us in our life. This is found in Moses 1:39 : “For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” Immortality is Christ’s gift, eternal life is life with Heavenly Father. God wants us to return to live with Him, and the principles and ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ are what get us there. These are: Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, Repentance, baptism by immersion by someone having the proper authority from God, receiving the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the end through keeping our temple covenants.
What is Relief Society? And, why do we have it?
When I was little, I never really thought about what Relief Society was. I just knew that my mom was a member of it. She attended her meetings, visit taught, went to her homemaking meetings, always had her manuals and scriptures with her for church, and frequented the temple with my Dad. I learned more about the Relief Society when I would go with my mom to the Super Saturdays the Stake would put together, and I even attended a few of the Gen RS Broadcasts with her. I have come to learn much more about the roles of Relief Society through serving as a visiting teacher, a teacher, a pianist, and a counselor in Relief Society. As a missionary, I got to help establish some of the first visiting teaching routes and Relief Society assignments and meetings in Romania, as the gospel was so new there. The sweet sisters there would look to us to lead them in their roles as Relief Society President. I remember being apprehensive at first as to how to go about setting up visiting teaching as a 21 year old. I had never done that before. I had barely been a visiting teacher before, and now I was in a position that deemed it necessary to put visiting teaching into action. I testify that the Lord heads this Church, that the Holy Spirit is present in meetings, and that through His guidance, all the goals of Relief Society fit together and are accomplished.
When asked what role the Relief Society fulfills in furthering the work of the Savior, Sister Beck replied, “As Relief Society sisters, we are united first and foremost because of our faith in Jesus Christ.” So, our faith in Christ is what bonds us and stands as a basis for all we do. Faith in Christ, we learn, is an action. “When Joseph Smith organized the Relief Society, he said that the women were not only to look after the poor but also to save souls.” “This”, sister Beck says, “is still our purpose.” So, what our faith in Jesus Christ leads us to do is to help others physically and spiritually.
The RS helps provide defense in these perilous times. We need to remember that there is opposition in all things, as taught in 2 Nephi 2:11, 15. 11 For it must needs be, that there is an aopposition in all things. If not so, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. 15 And to bring about his eternal apurposes in the end of man, after he had bcreated our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the cfowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the dforbidden efruit in fopposition to the gtree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter. In our time, “we are confronted with issues such as divorce, disobedience, debt, depression, apathy, and addiction…we also live in a day when the Lord’s Spirit is poured out upon us. This is a day when the gospel is being preached throughout the world, when the children of Israel are being gathered, when temples are upon the earth, and when we have the protection of priesthood covenants and ordinances.” Relief Society teaches us how “we can be successful against a deceitful and determined enemy. Our homes can and should become places of refuge.” In Relief Society we learn how to make our homes peaceful like the temple as read in Doctrine and Covenants 88:119-126, of which I will read verse 119:
Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;
And verse 124:
Cease to be idle; cease to be unclean; cease to find fault
one with another; cease to sleep longer than is needful; retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated.
We learn these things in Relief Society.
We have different meetings in Relief Society, the Sunday lessons and weekday activities. The Sunday lessons are where we “study the doctrines of the gospel together”. The messages of the Sunday lessons are so important that all the opening announcements that lead up to the lesson are to be short and dignified so as to allow the Spirit to “be in attendance.” “Our curriculum is so important.” Sister Beck reminds us that, “We are studying the words of the Prophet Joseph Smith from the best compilation of his works ever produced. This manual is the result of years of research and careful review. While the scriptures and Church magazines can enrich a discussion, we do not need to supplement the words of prophets with other sources, especially non-Church sources. “Our teachers [are to] ask insightful questions and encourage open sharing. The Spirit is the teacher, and we must prepare in such a way that He will be in attendance at every Sunday lesson.” That includes the students. She tells us: “The words of the prophets are clear and inspired. We cannot—we must not—be passive and nonchalant in our study of them.” Sisters who are in other classes during the RS hour, Sister Beck spoke to you, too. She says, “Women who are called to serve in Primary, Young Women, and other areas also learn doctrines of the gospel in their callings.” So sisters, although you may not be with us during the Sunday lesson due to your calling that takes to you to another class, you are still learning the gospel as you study and prepare for those lessons.
In response to a question regarding the weekday meetings’ role, Sister Beck reiterated a statement she gave at the Gen RS Broadcast 2 yrs ago, that “our unity and sisterhood will come naturally as a result of working together.” She continues by saying that weekday meetings allow us to “learn skills for sharing the gospel and preparing missionaries. We can learn about each other through family history. As we improve our homemaking skills such as cleaning, organizing, cooking, sewing, and gardening, we learn to create a climate of nurturing and spiritual growth in our homes. We must also learn to be self-reliant in temporal things such as education, career development, and keeping up with technology. We should be storing up a supply of food, and we should know how to budget our money. We should also be working to improve physical and mental health.” One thing that we must remember “when planning these meetings and activities,” she says, “we need to assess our precious resources of time, energy, and consecrated funds. [We] use them only to help us live the gospel in our homes and further the Lord’s work.” Through “focusing RS activities on the Lord’s work of salvation, we become unified and can call down the blessings of heaven.” What a promise to be able to call down the blessings of heaven! She continues, “I believe that when we focus on the important and forgo the frivolous, we gain confidence and our spirits are lifted. We cope better and feel less burdened. We will, of course still be busy, but we will be doing the work of salvation.”
So, who is in this great organization? All women 18 years and older, and younger if a mother, are in the Relief Society. This jump to Relief Society from Young Women’s should not be a huge jump, it is a natural transition, just as was going from Primary to Young Women’s. I remember my transition from Primary to YW. I remember not knowing what was going to happen in YW, but my leaders and classmates brought me in and immediately I felt at home there. My transition from YW to RS was fine, too. My Mom was there. I sat with her each week until going away to school. Sister Beck says that, “our talented young women are crossing the bridge from youth to adulthood, and Relief Society sisters have the charge to see that not one of them is lost.” Did you hear that??? RELIEF SOCIETY SISTERS, not the RS Pres, or the VTs, but the sisters, that is all of the sisters. We all have the responsibility to help these sisters succeed in Relief Society. They “have been taught to keep their baptismal covenants, and in RS we help them prepare to make temple covenants.” Thus, “18-yr-old RS sisters can chair committees, teach skills, help with missionary work, serve as visiting teachers, participate in family history and temple projects, and be full participants in the work of saving souls.” Just as Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are one in purpose, all sisters are one in purpose in the Relief Society. Our faith bonds us and allows us to do the work of the Lord, no matter what our age.
Visiting Teachers have an important role in the work of the Lord. Sister Beck reminds us that “our hands are [the Savior’s] hands, our love is His love, and our service is His service.” We are to “know the sisters that we visit teach, love them, serve them, and help them (1) learn the gospel by the Spirit, and (2) focus on fortifying their homes and lives.” Visiting teaching “is truly the business of salvation.”
Just as I first learned to appreciate Relief Society from my mother’s example, Sister Beck learned the importance of RS from her mother’s example. She tells that as a young girl her father was the mission president of what at the time was the only mission in Brazil. It had less than 4,000 members and only some of the branches had Relief Societies. She relates the story as follows: “My mother was called to organize Relief Societies in the mission. She spoke no Portuguese and had no manuals. What she did have was a testimony of the gospel and of Relief Society. She and her counselors began by helping sisters learn how to be visiting teachers.” At their first training meeting in the Sao Paulo, “seven humble women attended the meeting. My mother’s counselor, a Brazilian, greeted the sisters. After the prayer, she stood with trembling hands and read a message explaining visiting teaching. Then my mother stood. She knew four sentences in Portuguese: ‘I know that God lives. I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that we have a living prophet. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.’ Then the meeting ended. She hugged the women and bade them good-bye. “What a humble beginning to such a great work! Eventually, a Relief Society was established in every branch in Brazil. The sisters worked to prepare for a stake and the first temple in South America. They learned about ordinances and covenants and how to save souls.”
Recently, Sister Beck met with a group of women cabinet members from West Africa. Upon their question of how the Church helps African women, she “explained that in their countries we have many organized groups of women, called Relief Societies. We send the Church Handbook of Instructions to the president of each group. The women gather together often to study the gospel and to learn how to care for their families. The president divides the Relief Society women into pairs that visit the women in their homes, where they assess needs. Is anyone sick? Do they have enough food and clothing? Do they have the education they need? After the visits the women report what they found. Someone needs shoes, someone is having a baby, and one of them needs work. They ask if within their group they have the needed resources. Most of the time they do. That is what we do for our women in Africa. As [she] talked, these women nodded their heads and smiled. One said to [her], “That model would work for our women.”
Sister Beck says, and I agree, “that Relief Society is a model that works throughout the world and that our sisters are the finest, most capable, greatest force for good on the earth today.”
So, let’s get back to the beginning. Have you a better idea of what happens in the Relief Society? Did you learn how the Relief Society’s role can help you? What can you do? Sister Beck said, “We can start by strengthening ourselves spiritually through prayer and becoming self-reliant in scripture knowledge. We embrace the ordinances, covenants, and commandments the Lord has provided us.
We can then help gather scattered Israel. We have a duty to help prepare missionaries, to share the gospel, and to help retain those who are baptized. We have a responsibility to get ourselves and family members prepared for the temple. We can collect our family history and help the Lord’s children to be sealed in eternal families.
Step by step, in Relief Society we can help each other come unto Christ by doing the work we were organized to do.”
I love Sister Beck’s recap of her story of the sisters in Brazil. Her words encourage me to do all I can in Relief Society to better our ward and stake, and I hope that it can encourage you, too! She says, “In part, because the Relief Society sisters helped further the Lord’s work, the Church in Brazil now numbers over one million members. Like these sisters in Brazil, we must do our part. No one can do it for us. We cannot delegate our responsibility for building the kingdom to anyone else. It is our work. Let us embrace it and excel in building faith, strengthening families, and giving relief.”
I want to bear to you my testimony again that we are about the Lord’s work. As we prepare ourselves through scripture study and prayer, attend our meetings, keep ourselves healthy, make our homes a refuge against the evils of our day, as we visit the sick and the needy, as we keep our covenants, as we teach the gospel to each other and to our families, we are doing what our Heavenly Father wants. We will have His Spirit with us. He will guide us to know what to say and how to say it so we need not wonder if there is a way to accomplish what we are called to do! In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Home, Family, and Fun!
