What a marvelous time of year it is, not just by season, but also because twice during this month are there monumental anniversaries of great things. First and fore most, The Relief Society was organized 168 Years ago today! How exciting! What great things I have seen that wonderful and powerful institution do for the world.... and even for me brethren. The Church has provided this wonderful video (The following link) to commemorate that special anniversary!
Relief Society Video
Finally here is some more Relief Society Facts to ponder:
1842— Nauvoo, Illinois. Joseph Smith organized the
Relief Society of Nauvoo, with Emma Smith, his wife, as the president. History of the Church, 4:552–53, 567
March 1976 Ensign Talk By Spencer W. Kimball
It is very fitting that this issue of the Ensign should pay
special attention to the women of the Church, for March 17 marks the
134th anniversary of the founding of their unique organization, the
Relief Society. “I will organize you … after a pattern of the
priesthood,” the Prophet Joseph Smith told that small group of women who
wished to have a society of their own.
Later, he added, “The Church was never fully organized until the
women were thus organized.” (“Story of the Organization of the Relief
Society,” Relief Society Magazine, March 1919, p. 129.) Thus,
Latter-day Saint women everywhere were united in a sisterhood; and today
the Relief Society blesses every woman who accepts the gift of activity
in that sisterhood just as the young women’s organization blesses their
younger sisters.
I wonder if women who do not participate fully in Relief Society
realize the great promises that come with their membership. Let me
enumerate some of these blessings, pronounced upon the Society by the
Prophet Joseph Smith:
1. This society, a society of sisters, is organized “according to
your natures. … You are now placed in a situation in which you can act
according to those sympathies which God has planted in your bosoms.” (HC,
4:605.)
2. “If this Society listen to the counsel of the Almighty, through
the heads of the Church, they shall have power to command queens in
their midst.” (HC, 4:605.)
3. “If you live up to your privileges, the angels cannot be
restrained from being your associates.” (HC, 4:605.)
4. “Knowledge and intelligence shall flow down from this time
henceforth.” (HC, 4:607.)
5. “This Society shall rejoice.” (HC, 4:607.)
I think there are many ways in which these promises are being
fulfilled. I think of the spirit of revelation that my own dear wife
invites into our home because of the hours she has spent every year of
our married life in studying the scriptures, so that she can be prepared
to teach the principles of the gospel in her Relief Society calling. I
think of the sweet and tender spirit that accompanies her after she
spends her time in compassionate service or in the loving fellowship of
visiting teaching. Our Relief Society sisters acknowledge by their deeds
their willingness to follow the Savior and to make sacrifices for the
kingdom of God. They strengthen each other as they grow and learn
together. They share their testimonies about the magnitude of their
callings to care for others and their knowledge that the Lord aids them
as they seek help with those responsibilities.
I marvel at the faithfulness of so many of our sisters and their
unswerving devotion to the cause of righteousness. My own wonderful
mother’s journal records a lifetime of being grateful for the
opportunity to serve and sorry only that she couldn’t do more. I smiled
when I recently read one entry dated January 16, 1900. She was serving
as first counselor in our Relief Society in Thatcher, Arizona, and the
presidency went to a sister’s home where a sick baby had prevented the
mother from doing her sewing. Mother took her machine, a picnic lunch,
her baby, and a high chair, and they began work. She wrote that night,
we “made four aprons, four pairs of pants and started a shirt for one of
the boys.” They had to stop at 4 p.m. to
go to a funeral, so we “did not get any more than that done.” I would
have been impressed by such achievement, rather than thinking, “Well,
that’s not much.” Then two days later, the Relief Society met in our
home for a work meeting. “We had quite a turnout,” wrote my mother, and
“accomplished considerable.” Then after that work meeting, she went
uncomplainingly to a board meeting.
That’s the kind of home I was born in, one conducted by a woman who
breathed service in all her actions. That is the kind of home my wife
has made. That is the kind of home that thousands of wonderful women all
over the Church make for their husbands and children, and I firmly feel
that much of that success rests in the ideals and work of the Relief
Society.
As the First Presidency, we feel strongly enough about the blessings
that come through Relief Society that we have asked presidents of
stakes, missions, and districts to foster Relief Society attendance, to
help the brethren understand the great strength to the priesthood and to
families that comes from the activity of the sisters in Relief Society.
We have particularly asked them to encourage single sisters to
participate in Relief Society.
The Relief Society is the Lord’s organization for women. It
complements the priesthood training given to the brethren. There is a
power in this organization that has not yet been fully exercised to
strengthen the homes of Zion and build the Kingdom of God—nor will it
until both the sisters and the priesthood catch the vision of Relief
Society.
There is a wonderful lesson for all of us in the minutes of the
Fifteenth Ward Relief Society here in Salt Lake. This organization was
presided over for forty years, beginning in 1868, by Sarah M. Kimball, a
great woman, but not related to me. During the late 1870s when Relief
Societies were being organized in all the wards, some of the brethren
occasionally did not understand the program and thus failed to lend it
their full support, but the bishop of this ward understood and respected
the Relief Society. On January 8, 1878, he sent his counselor to speak
to the Relief Society. Brother Binder transmitted the love of the bishop
and said he had “no fear of the sisters transcending the bounds of the
Priesthood.” Instead, he extended to them his “support and faith.” Then
he added something very significant. He hoped that the sisters would
sustain their officers “as faithfully as they would be sustained by the
bishop and counsel[ors].” (Minutes, Fifteenth Ward Relief Society,
Church Archives.)
We echo this message. We hope that you sisters will support your
leaders in the Relief Society as faithfully and as fully as we support
them. Sister Smith and her counselors are noble women. They seek the
direction of the Spirit in their lives and decisions. They are faithful
stewards in the great and weighty responsibilities that they have been
called to. They work harmoniously with their advisors in the Council of
the Twelve and sustain the priesthood in every way. They have our love,
our confidence, and our support.
It is a great blessing to be a woman in the Church today. The
opposition against righteousness has never been greater, but the
opportunities for fulfilling our highest potential have also never been
greater.
What is our greatest potential? Is it not to achieve godhood
ourselves? And what are the qualities we must develop to achieve such
greatness? We might consider some:
First, intelligence, light and knowledge. What special opportunities
do women have in this area? These qualities, you will remember, are part
of the promise given to the sisters by the Prophet Joseph Smith. Since
we learn best by teaching others, we think our Relief Society sisters
see the fulfillment of that promise daily as they teach children at
home, in Sunday School, and in Primary, in Relief Societies, in
sacrament meetings, and in daily conversation. We urge our sisters who
are called to teach to magnify their callings through study and prayer,
recognizing the eternal values they are building for themselves, as well
as for those they teach. We encourage all our sisters to take advantage
of their opportunities to receive light and knowledge in school, in
personal study, and in Relief Society.
Second, leadership. Women have unique opportunities to grow in
leadership skills. Do you think of leadership as telling others what to
do, or as making all the decisions? Not so. Leadership is the ability to
encourage the best efforts of others in working toward a desirable
goal. Who has more significant opportunities to lead than a mother who
guides her children toward perfection, or the wife who daily counsels
with her husband that they may grow together? The tremendous
contribution in leadership made by women in the auxiliaries of the
Church and in their communities is likewise beyond measure.
And finally, perhaps the most essential godlike quality: compassion
and love—compassion shown forth in service to others, unselfishness,
that ultimate expression of concern for others we call love. Relief
Society indeed provides women with special opportunities to express
their feelings of charity, benevolence, and love. There are other
avenues of service—the community and particularly the home. Wherever
women are true to their feminine natures and magnify their opportunities
for loving service, they are learning to become more like God.
I have mentioned only a few of the special blessings God gives his
daughters in helping them to become like him. His sons have their own
special opportunities. And in his wisdom and mercy, our Father made men
and women dependent on each other for the full flowering of their
potential. Because their natures are somewhat different, they can
complement each other; because they are in many ways alike, they can
understand each other. Let neither envy the other for their differences;
let both discern what is superficial and what is beautifully basic in
those differences, and act accordingly. And may the brotherhood of the
priesthood and the sisterhood of the Relief Society be a blessing in the
lives of all the members of this great Church, as we help each other
along the path to perfection.
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D&C 3:16–20 . “Nevertheless, My Work Shall Go Forth”
President Joseph Fielding Smith explained the significance of this prophecy and its fulfillment: “Joseph Smith, in his own strength, would scarcely have dared to predict to a bitterly hostile world that no power could stay this work and that it would go forth as a witness to all the world. The Lord has decreed that his work would be established. He called it a ‘Marvelous work and a wonder,’ even before the organization of the Church. If Joseph Smith had been guilty of practising a fraud; if he had endeavored to palm off the Book of Mormon on this hostile, unbelieving world, he never would have dared to say that it would go forth to the convincing of Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ. Even if he had been foolish enough to make such a declaration, and the work being spurious, it would have come to a speedy and ridiculous end. It never would have survived the first year of its existence. It would have been so filled with flaws that the scrutinizing gaze of the world would have exposed it in all its folly. The truth remains that, after the thousands of attacks and scores of books that have been published, not one criticism or attack has survived, and thousands have borne witness that the Lord has revealed to them the truth of this marvelous work.” ( Church History and Modern Revelation, 1:28–29.)
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