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RELIEF SOCIETY
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14
Organization of adult women of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which complements the priesthood. The Relief Society was organized by the Joseph Smith in 1842. Since women in the LDS church have no authority nor title, they are given Relief Society.
Only men (generally all men, including boys age twelve and up) hold the priesthood in the church, and thus only men are in positions of authority. Even where women act as leaders in the women's organization (the "Relief Society"), they are supervised by men. Women are trained to serve and obey their husbands (or fathers, if unmarried).
The Relief Society has been simply a "figurehead" since the inception of Correlation when they no longer could govern themselves.
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Question:
Is there a standardized protocol for being the President of the Relief Society in the ward? I need more info, like does she have control of money paid out for applicants, or are recommendations all forwarded to the financial officer and subject to approval? How many duties does she have? How much time is expected from her in this job?
Answer:
First, there is a standard protocol for ward RS presidents. Their duties and responsibilities are outlined in a special section of the official Church Handbook of Instructions. You might be able to find more information at lds.org - check under "Serving in the Church" and find the section for the RS. There's no separate website for the RS.
Second, nobody applies for membership in Relief Society any more. Any woman in the church who turns 18 is automatically a member of the Relief Society. So are any teenagers who get married or pregnant before their 18th birthdays.
Since there aren't applications for R.S., there are no longer dues, either, nor is there an RS magazine. (Neither are there fundraising bazaars, for that matter.) The women are given a budget for the year (a budget dictated by the finance men in SLC, apportioned by the ward finance clerk and bishop - all men. The women can propose a budget, but the men have final say) The RS Presidency can spend it as needed for RS functions and classes. If RS members need financial or other assistance, the RS president refers those members to the bishop but will likely assist the member in going grocery shopping with church funds if the bishop gives his approval to help the RS member.
On Sundays, RS presidents spend the usual 3 hours in regular meetings and most probably spend at least another hour or two in ward leadership meetings and presidency meetings. They organize and run the RS Sunday meetings, but don't usually do much visibly in class other than teach once a month. There are also Stake leadership meetings to attend, and many bishops expect RS presidents to be regular temple attenders if there's a temple within driving distance. RS presidents are often asked to meet with new ward members and welcome them into the ward and may feel the responsibility to visit sisters with particular needs.
They are called upon to help with funeral arrangements, so if lots of people in the ward are dying, they can be busy organizing that. They oversee all the functions of the RS program, making sure there are teachers, lessons, visiting teaching assignments, casseroles available to sick people, spiritual nourishment for shut-ins, etc. She's often the go-to person when people need help with anything related to women and the ward, and likely gets phone calls and emails at all hours of the day and night; if not directly for her, if from people thinking she knows the answer. Some wards call upon their Relief Societies to plan for food at ward parties and pancake breakfasts. If there's a missionary conference in town, there's a good chance the RS will be providing food for that, as well.
If a woman is a good delegator and planner, and if she has reliable people working with her, she'll have to spend less time doing all those things herself. She won't be able to delegate many of her administrative meeting requirements, though, so Sundays can be long.
Credits: Librarian, Seenitinaction
| 1. There is no place in the hierarchy for women in the Mormon Church.
All women serve under the men. They can never officiate in any ordinance or assist in anyway. They cannot even hold their own baby to give it a name and a blessing.
2. No real redress.
They have no real voice or redress if it conflicts with a man in authority. Just try it and find out. They might talk big about it, but in reality, it does not exist. Even getting an apology, or acceptance of responsibility from a male is almost always impossible, if a female has been wronged in any way.
3. Secondary to men and even young boys.
The position of women in the church is as a "help meet" and and a lot of lip service is given to women's greater "spirituality" however, that is just a way of attempting to make them believe they are as equal and just as important as men. It is a feeble attempt at depreciation by the males to say that women are "more spiritual."
4. Obedience to men never women.
The interesting thing is that in theory the real doctrine makes a grand attempt to make women equal to men. The women wear the "holy garment of the priesthood" (which means they hold the priesthood, only as a priestess to a male, but do not officiate) just as the men do, and a man cannot be exalted to the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom without a woman.
But, in reality, just the opposite is true. Women are to obey their husbands, obey the Lord, obey the male leadership in the home (which, technically can be a 12 year old Deacon- on up), etc.
The doctrine of obedience is a higher doctrine than equality. Love is conditional, based on obedience.
Women are not just second class in Mormonism, they are technically third class -- below the Aaronic Priesthood, which is often their sons!
5. Polygamy as a law of heaven is demeaning.
Polygamy is the worse disrespect of women and children and feeds into making women obedience, brood-mare slaves.
6. Role of women as mothers.
Women are to be the mothers and the men are are to officiate in the priesthood. That is how Heavenly Father wants it.
7. Control of her sexuality.
A females in the Mormon Church are expected to be chaste which means she is non-sexual unless married in their only accepted fashion.
8. Men must give approval for a woman to have a "calling".
A woman's husband or father is consulted first before a calling is extended to a female.
9.Confession by females to males.
A female is commanded to confess her sins and transgressions to a male - husband, bishop,stake presidency, regional representatives, etc, never the other way around.
I could go on and on and on!
When I converted to Mormonism in 1961 as a young woman, I had no idea that this would be my role!
Trying to make this role fit me was like buying a dress that was too high waisted, too tight in the arm pits, and too long so that I walked on it.
But, I donned the dress, ignored the uncomfortable fit and went along to get alone because, by the time I figured it out, I was married to a TBM RM in the temple, and continued, for years and years to figure out what was wrong with me!
Mormonism is a strange fit for women!
No wonder it didn't fit. It is not a religion for independent, authentic adult women!
http://www.exmormon.org/boards/w-agor...
| I'm sure it's probably true of the scouting program as well, but since I don't have experience with scouts, I;m only going to talk about the YW program.
I remember lesson after lesson about the importance of a temple marriage, as if that was the destination. There was nothing outlined after that, just a vague sense that you would bring spirit children into the world, give them a body and have them follow you to kolob where you'd all live together in bliss.
We occassionally had lesson's designed to develop our talents -- well not really our talents as individuals, just our collective talents, like cooking, sewing, crocheting, knitting, singing, babysitting, mending, ironing, stain removal, yadda, yadda, yadda.
There was never an emphasis on education, too worldly and unnecessary to the forgone plan for your life -- you'll get married to that perfect priesthood(place)holder, start making tabarnacles for sweet spirits, and if you've played your cards right, smiled sweetly, raised no eyebrows, you'll one day become one of the select few nameless/faceless bishop's wives.
Yes, everybodies got a role to play -- collectively speaking of course!
http://www.exmormon.org/boards/w-agor...
| Our ward is dealing with the move to quarterly enrichment nights by having a monthly book club for the women in the ward. The first book was Ravenspell: Of Mice and Magic, so clearly safety trumped any desire to use the opportunity to read great literature.
DW has been in other book clubs. The first one (with women in a previous ward) included books by Dickens, Voltaire, Stegner, etc. They actually discussed how the books illustrated life's ambiguity (among other things), even when the ideas didn't mesh with the "restored gospel".
The first dilemma was whether or not to have an opening prayer. After some discussion, they decided that book club was not a church meeting. They then talked about the book for 5 minutes. Given the safety of the book, I'm sure there wasn't much to talk about.
Much more time was later spent trying to come up with a reading list. Someone suggested The Red Tent, a collection of stories told by the patriarch Jacob's daughter about her four mothers and life as a woman in their tribe. (The red tent was where the women would go to have their children or while they were menstruating.) DW loved that book. At this point one of the other women suggested that they should make sure that anything they read was completely in harmony with the teachings of the gospel. I wish that DW had commented that they already had a book club like that called Sunday School. Man, you would have thought that people were recommending Grant Palmer's book.
Other people suggested other books that were shot down because they might offend someone. I think that a vast majority of Mormon women would feel comfortable reading a wide variety of books on their own, but many are so afraid to admit to groups of other women that they might read books that might have a little sex, profanity, or worldliness. In a previous ward, there was an official ward book club that didn't last long after one family complained about Harry Potter being on the list. (They were afraid that their children might want to drop Mormonism for Satanism.)
So here we have yet another illustration of how fear drives people in the church. It might be more pronounced with women, I don't know. I was just thrilled that DW came home and complained about the closemindedness of the other women. She's TBM, but she's not blind. Hallelujah!
| Check Out My Ward's Relief Society Message! Apparently Women Are Under Attack By Satan
Wednesday, Mar 1, 2006, at 07:21 AM
Original Author(s): Redman
Topic: RELIEF SOCIETY -Link To MC Article- | ↑ | Here is the exact text of this month's Relief Society Presidency message from my ward, with my thoughts interjected in parentheses:
"Women and all the good they stand for have been under attack for several decades. Satan keeps using new and increasingly nefarious methods to debase women and make them captive to his lies. As with all good things, Satan creates a counterfeit and sells it loud and long as the real thing, only to laugh and mock the resulting devastation. The movement to make women “equal” in society had many noble and valuable purposes, but became corrupted when it led to the Sexual Revolution, no-fault divorce and the drive to "have it all."
(Apparently, she prefers women to remain ignorant of their sexual potential, as well as stay trapped in miserable and abusive marriages.)
"The current wave of attacks on women further debases us all and strives to convince those who participate that they become more free."
(Hmm, maybe they really do become more free and actually like it).
"This current assault on women is taking a new twist on an old theme. The image the world has created of what a great woman should be is based almost solely on her measurements and her level of permissiveness. That “standard” is being set by the fashion industry, Hollywood, and the porn industry. The lengths that women go to achieve the “perfect” body leave them no happier and still seeking.
Who sets the standard for us? It is extremely difficult to live in this world and not feel the constant pull of the world’s standards. But that pull is a downward pull. We have a standard that is eternal and unchanging. It is the Lord’s standard. If Satan succeeds in distracting the women of the world and especially in the Church from our God-given mission as nurturers, wives, mothers, and sisters and as the spiritual barometer for society he is one step closer to achieving the downfall of society."
(In other words, you must not have any aspirations to a career or anything remotely similar or you are contributing to the destruction of society)
"If we waste our existence pursuing the perfect body or perfect life as defined by the world, we are just as surely lost as those who intentionally walk away. (That’s us!) Satan does not care which path we take as long as it leads down.”
When I ask my kids, “How did you get to be so smart?” my husband taught them to say: “Good genes!” Sisters, we all have good genes! It doesn’t matter where we came from, we are God’s creation, we are His daughters. We have a great work to do and the ability to do it. I challenge all of us to read and re-read Sister Tanner and Elder Holland’s talks from the most recent General Conference. We must resist the pull of the world and stand proudly as worthy and exemplary daughters of God. We teach that standard daily through our dress, our deeds, and our words. Whether we have children or not, and regardless of our age, we teach our daughters and our sons how vital and important the role of true womanhood is in Heavenly Father’s plan."
(In other words, we must pass our sexist attitudes on from generation to generation in order to keep the Mormon church strong.)
"We must teach them how to measure by the true standard that only He (the Mormon church hierarchy, that is) can set."
I just found this piece to be really negative and shrill and depressing. Notice how many times Satan is mentioned and how apocalyptic she comes across. I can't believe that the women buy this crap. My wife read it and agreed with me that the tone was retarded but she basically is ok with everything said.
| Remember Relief Society Homemaking Projects? This Is The One I Will Never Forget!
Wednesday, Mar 29, 2006, at 07:27 AM
Original Author(s): Susieq#1
Topic: RELIEF SOCIETY -Link To MC Article- | ↑ | This is one of the stories in my autobiographical collection.
The Relief Society (Mormon Church) Homemaking Project- decorated waste baskets from ice cream barrels, early 1960's 37th Married Student Ward, on BYU campus.
One of the many Relief Society Homemaking projects that I will never forget involved ice cream barrels that we procured from the local ice cream stores in Provo, UT in the 60's.
Some of us would call the ice cream shops and pick them up before they were thrown out.Then we would wash them and dry them.
Then, we would decorate them in Relief Society Homemaking Meeting in the basement of one of the Wymount Terrace buildings on campus.
I remember putting all kinds of funny things on them: tiny pom-pom balls, rick-rack and covering them in cloth or wall paper! We were recycling even back then!
One Christmas as very poor students, I decorated one waste paper basket for my mother and one for my mother in law as presents and managed to get them in our little car and drive them all the way to Portland, Oregon.
The one I gave to my mother was kept by her favorite over-stuffed chair in the living room. Mother had polio many years before then suffered many strokes and now spent a lot of time in her favorite chair next to her small bookcase reading and doing crossword puzzles, and napping.
Mother loved her dogs. She had a little white cock-a-poo-mix, called "Cookie" that never left her side and used to sit by her on the wide arm of her large chair. "Cookie" got old and a little blind and would often sleep on the arm of that chair with Mother. Most days both of them fell asleep in the chair.
One day, when I called home, I asked about her little dog "Cookie." Mother told me that "Cookie" died. "She is pretty old," I said, "I guess it was her time."
"Well, mother said, "Cookie fell into the waste basket and broke her neck!" I gasped! "The waste basket?" I asked. "Yes," she said, "you remember the one you made me for Christmas a long time ago?"
I have never been sure whether "Cookie" died on the arm of the chair and fell off or fell off in her sleep and the waste basket broke her neck and she died. Either way, that little decorated ice cream barrel is forever associated with the death of "Cookie" and a Relief Society Project of recycling by very poor students at Christmas time!
Ahh, the days of Relief Society Projects!
| When I joined the church in 1992, the concept of RS was new to me. The Presbyterian churches I grew up in had Sunday School and the main worship service. There was no separation of the sexes.
At first I enjoyed meeting the RS ladies, they were welcoming and very pleasant. As I attended meetings and listened to the lessons in RS, it became evident to me that it was not about improving the ladies lives with Christ's teachings and helpful homemaker tips, it was a lot of odd, wrong and just nasty info. Of course, there were a few useful tips along the way, and an occasional nice lesson, but here are a few of the doozies:
1. Ward put on an all-out food storage blitz around 93/94. Amounts of necessary food and the reasons for it were listed. We were encouraged to use the cookbook and food usage guides given by the stake or church HQ rather than worldly cookbooks. One of the repeated points was the storage of Crisco since you couldn't store butter and Crisco was an important source of "carbohydrates". There are absolutely no carbs in Crisco, pure fat. But these were the best books out there.
2. Bishop's wife got up and proclaimed that all of the grains and flour used at the cannery were of a much superior quality and that justified paying more for them. She just carried on about how all your baked goods would be "superior" because of these blessed flours.
3. Every year or so, some sister would give a lesson on Jesus' death on the cross, adding as much gory detail as she could, tendons tearing, agonizing length of time to die, etc. It was truly nauseating and I just started getting up and walking out after the second lesson.
4. Once I was assigned to VT this odd woman who was openly hostile. She was about 22, and lived with this elderly TBM couple who traveled a lot. She was caretaker for their house and pets while they traveled. Though she was an active mo and a RS teacher, she was just nasty during our (prescheduled, on-time and short) lessons. After a few months, my VT partner and I asked the VT queen to reassign us, we didn't go into detail, just said that it was obviously not a good match. Later, during RS, the VT queen was whispering to this woman, literally pointing and glaring at us. Both of them gave dirty looks to me for the next few months until we moved from the ward.
5. I mentioned once to a neighbor from our ward, who I was close to, an issue I had with a fellow sister. This was allegedly done in confidence. The next RS meeting, this RS neighbor gets up (it was FandT Sunday) and proceeds to rail about this offense and how her friend is being treated badly, all while glaring at the sister I mentioned. It couldn't have been more obvious even though she didn't mention names. The talker came up to me afterwards, just so proud she had defended me. What a couple of nuts. I literally never again exchanged confidences with an RS lady.
6. There always seemed to be a doctrine know it all who would question and harass the teacher. I'm not talking about actual differences in belief, just nitpicking about what town an early church moment occured in or the pronounciation of some odd scripture name. RS seemed to be the place for the small minded to seem important.
7. The culmination of a month long buildup to fabulous fall foods consisted of a homemaking meeting featuring heated Dinty Moore beef stew served in a hollowed out pumpkin and store bought pumpkin bread. Ick.
8. An entire lesson, given by the esteemed Temple President's wife (visitor to our ward) on how we were to properly dress and wear our garments. This is Southern NV, where it is a million degrees in the summer. The whole point of the lesson was that you are not fooling anyone, especially God, when you roll your garment legs or sleeves to accomodate immodest clothing and buying petite garments when you are not petite is just a ploy to dress sluttishly (she said "immodestly") and you are a sinner if you do that. It reminded me of a junior high P.E. teacher in the late 1970's who told us we could not roll up our gym shorts because then they became hotpants. Same maturity level!
That's enough for me, though I have many more examples.
| RS once was about women--patriarchal women to be sure, but women nevertheless. For those too young to remember, here are some highlights.
Once upon a time in my memory, RS had four topics, each taught one time per month. The topics were Theology, Literature, Social Relations and Homemaking. Theology was Mormon theology, but it had a much more "in depth" tone to it than under correlation. (That is true for Priesthood Meeting lessons, too, but that is another story.)
The "manual" for Literature was "Out of the Best Books," a kind of "Readers Digest" style compilation that excerpted real literature for RS discussion. Depending on who the teacher was in any given ward, these could be excellent discussions.
Social Relations dealt with sociological topics. In fact, it may have even been called Sociology once upon a time, with Social Relations becoming the title later on. An old manual that I picked up at a Utah thrift store was actually a sort of sociology text book, though it was in effect long before my time. By the time I was in RS, in the 1960s, this had been "dumbed down," but it still had a bit of an academic bent to it, to the point that when I actually took a sociology class at a community college, I found topics in the class that were familiar to me from RS.
Homemaking dealt with household tips, child care information and provided a forum for women-to-women mentoring from older women to younger ones. It was followed by what we used to call "Work Day," where we did crafts and/or quilting. Anyone remember the resin grapes that graced the coffee tables of Mormon homes?
In addition to having sometimes fun and sometimes corny crafts, "Work Day" was an opportunity to socialize with other women, with a "nursery" provided for preschool kids. I can remember being in the nursery when I went to "Liefty Sity" with my grandmother. Back then, and into the time when I was a young mother in the late Sixties, they brought in paid child care workers to tend the kids. (Later I was the RS President and they dropped the pay and women had to take turns in the nursery. It became quite an onerous task to arrange the child care because older women opted out and the younger women's turns came up so often that they dreaded it and started making up excuses.)
Back in those days, RS touted itself as an organization that over time would provide women with the equivalent of a college degree in terms of the knowledge and information presented in its lessons. While that claim was always overblown, at least in the time that I was attended, RS certainly came closer to attaining that goal than the pablum-laced lessons of today.
With Correlation, the titles of the lessons came to be Spiritual Living, Cultural Refinement, Social Relations and Homemaking. These were dumbed-down versions of the prior ones. I haven't been to RS in years, but I think Spiritual Living remains and Social Relations has become Family Relations. The other two have been replaces with the "Prophets" series that is the same for Priesthood Meeting. By its nature, the "Prophets" lessons focuses entirely on men.
IMO, the church has done a major job of shooting itself in the foot in what it has done with RS over the years. It gutted what was once the strength of the organization, and undermined relationships among women in the church. The result is today's ho-hum relief society.
| You can read about its founding at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relief_S...
Most Mormons are vaguely familiar with the fact that Brigham Young disbanded the RS after Joseph Smith's death, and didn't re-institute it until about 20 years later. But few Mormons know that Young disbanded it because Emma Smith, the original RS president, vehemently opposed polygamy, and hated Young.
Even before Joseph's death, Emma had written a letter denouncing polygamy, which was co-signed by about 1000 other women:
Rumors concerning polygamy and other practices erupted into the open by 1842. Emma was involved in campaigns to publicly condemn polygamy and deny any involvement by her husband. Emma authorized and was the main signatory of a petition in Summer 1842, with a thousand female signatures, denying Joseph Smith, Jr. was connected with polygamy.[4] As President of the Ladies' Relief Society, she authorized the publishing of a certificate in October 1842 denouncing polygamy and denying her husband as its creator or participant.[5] In March 1844, Emma published,
" we raise our voices and hands against John C. Bennett's 'spiritual wife system', as a scheme of profligates to seduce women; and they that harp upon it, wish to make it popular for the convenience of their own cupidity; wherefore, while the marriage bed, undefiled is honorable, let polygamy, bigamy, fornication, adultery, and prostitution, be frowned out of the hearts of honest men to drop in the gulf of fallen nature".[6]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Smi...
Most TBMs believe that Emma supported Joseph, but this letter reveals that not only did she oppose polygamy, Joseph had denied it successfully enough to her that she incorrectly believed that John C. Bennett was responsible for the practice. Poor Emma wasn't aware that at the time she penned this letter, both of her counselors in the RS had secretly plural married her husband.
Joseph made a statement during that time---which unfortunately, I can't locate at present---in which he complained that "I never had any trouble with polygamy until the Relief Society put out that damned letter." I know the quote is in Brodie, maybe somebody else can furnish it.
Most TBMs assume that the RS was disbanded because of "persecution" and the move west, but you can see that nothing could be further from the truth.
| Last night DW watched some Mo-related videos with me on YouTube. Most of them were from FAIRLDS because they are "church friendly", and I have to thank those guys for bringing up issues like horses, Bountiful, etc, and then doing such a crappy job at actually explaining anything. DW listened intently, but came away from each one saying, "So, what were they saying?" I had to try not to laugh.
We watched another video of a lady lecturing about the role of women in the LDS faith. She mentioned a lot of the criticisms aimed at Mormons, which was great for DW to hear from another woman (instead of me). The lady brought up the Relief Society as an autonomous organization, which was evidence that women DO have some contol in the church. The red flags went up for me, and thanks to this board, I knew what questions to ask.
If the Relief Society is REALLY autonomous (self-governing), does that mean it...
- Chooses its own leaders? (No, the Brethren do that)
- Chooses its own lesson materials? (Nope)
- Controls its own budget (income and expenditures)? (Sorry, no)
- Sets its own schedule? (As long as it doesn't interfere with the Brethrens')
- Has the ability to change itself without asking (Uhhh, no)
The Relief Society was ORIGINALLY an autonomous organization until Joseph decided he would make it a part of his own. Sarah Kimball asked Eliza R. Snow to write a constitution and by-laws for the organization for submission to Joseph Smith for review, which Joseph called them "the best he had ever seen" but said, "this is not what you want. Tell the sisters their offering is accepted of the Lord, and He has something better for them than a written constitution. ... I will organize the sisters under the priesthood after a pattern of the priesthood."
Amen to autonomy from Day 1. Yes, the RS is proof indeed of the Church's relationship with women. DW didn't know what to say. I absolutely love Church apologetics! They're so... helpful.
| Recently I was involved in a meeting(I used to work for the LDS church and now I'm professionally connected) where people kept talking about how great "The Priesthood" in a local area got on top of things in their community. It came out like, "It's unbelievable how fast the priesthood came out and fixed..." "The priesthood took care of everything so quickly..." This talk was about helping ward or stake members after a calamity.
I tried to mention that perhaps the "Relief society" had a hand in getting things taken care of, but was slapped down, "No it was the Priesthood". This was all said in a room full of people, of which about half were women. I said to one woman sitting next to me who was from Utah(this all took place in another state)"In Utah the relief society does a lot of things right?" She said, "No it's usually the Priesthood."
So true to form, "The Priesthood" means the men in that area. And any work done by the women didn't count. I guess after a calamity, the women just take care of the kids and the Priesthood goes about setting everything back in order.
I wonder why it is that in groups that are not mormon, women get credit for taking part in restoring things back to a normal state after a calamity, but with mormons, ONLY the "Priesthood" does anything.
I'm fairly new at being out(couple of years) but now having "The Priesthood" used as a gender reference, not as a supposed magical power from God, rubbed me wrong. And all the mormon women in the room happily went along with it. Even though every one of them were professional women, they left me out to dry when I tried to point out that it wasn't all men/The Priesthood that accomplishes anything.
I would have never made it as a women there.
| Last week while walking my dog, I found myself sharing the trail with the RS enrichment night. Now that might be quite usual in Utah, but it's as rare as hen's teeth here in the UK.
As I drove into the parking area I spotted a sign saying 'RS (LDS)', which is a sign that probably only an exmo would understand over here. I live in the middle of a big forest, so I figured I could probably avoid the party, by taking different tracks and so on.
There was a large number of SUVs in the parking area but no sign of anyone so the dog and I set off. After about a mile we spotted ahead of us a straggly line of women and a few men, presumably there to guard the women from who knows what. I felt so much safer knowing I was sharing the forest with the priesthood!!!
It was interesting to me that they stuck undeviating to the track they were on, wandering neither to the left or right. If they had read the information board, at one point they would have learned they were on the site of an ancient holy well where artifacts had been found dating back to stone age times and coming forward through iron age, bronze age and roman times.
A less than minutes walk from there is a four thousand year old burial barrow, where there have also been several ancient finds. Imagine that!! All this evidence of life from what would only have been a few dozen people. Perhaps they couldn't stop to investigate in case it stirred up thoughts of why the great nephite and lamanite civilizations, battles etc had left nothing.
Still they marched straight on.
Dog and I visited the well, walked by the barrow and returned to the car park a different way. When we got back the RS was wandering in. Now this is a ward I was very active in for thirty years, but it has so much turn over that there were only two people I knew. I walked through them unrecognized and put the dog in the car. I felt like one of the three nephites (yes, that's right, an imaginary person,) I knew who they were but they were oblivious that their former RS Pres was amongst them.
Interestingly, the current RS Pres was practically leaning on my vehicle. Only a month ago she had emailed me, telling me how often she thought of me and how much she missed me. I looked her right in the eyes and she had no clue who I was. It's only been eighteen months, I haven't changed that much. Can we say 'Insincere'?
Incidentally when I told my 16 year old son about my three nephite feeling, he promptly asked me if I had fixed anyone's car. Good kid.
| Relief Society Projects From The 60's Deocrated Ice Cream Waste Paper Baskets
Friday, Oct 22, 2010, at 08:53 AM
Original Author(s): Susieq#1
Topic: RELIEF SOCIETY -Link To MC Article- | ↑ | This is one of the stories in my autobiographical collection.
The Relief Society Homemaking Project- decorated waste baskets from ice cream barrels, early 1960's 37th Married Student Ward, on BYU campus.
One of the many Relief Society Homemaking projects that I will never forget involved ice cream barrels that we procured from the local ice cream stores in Provo, UT in the 60's.
Some of us would call the ice cream shops and pick them up before they were thrown out.Then we would wash them and dry them.
Then, we would decorate them in Relief Society Homemaking Meeting in the basement of one of the Wymount Terrace buildings on campus.
I remember putting all kinds of funny things on them: tiny pom-pom balls, rick-rack and covering them in cloth or wall paper! We were recycling even back then!
One Christmas as very poor students, I decorated one waste paper basket for my mother and one for my mother in law as presents and managed to get them in our little car and drive them all the way to Portland, Oregon.
The one I gave to my mother was kept by her favorite over-stuffed chair in the living room. Mother had polio many years before then suffered many strokes and now spent a lot of time in her favorite chair next to her small bookcase reading and doing crossword puzzles, and napping.
Mother loved her dogs. She had a little white cock-a-poo-mix, called "Cookie" that never left her side and used to sit by her on the wide arm of her large chair. "Cookie" got old and a little blind and would often sleep on the arm of that chair with Mother. Most days both of them fell asleep in the chair.
One day, when I called home, I asked about her little dog "Cookie." Mother told me that "Cookie" died. "She is pretty old," I said, "I guess it was her time."
"Well, mother said, "Cookie fell into the waste basket and broke her neck!" I gasped! "The waste basket?" I asked. "Yes," she said, "you remember the one you made me for Christmas a long time ago?"
I have never been sure whether "Cookie" died on the arm of the chair and fell off or fell off in her sleep and the waste basket broke her neck and she died. Either way, that little decorated ice cream barrel is forever associated with the death of "Cookie" and a Relief Society Project of recycling by very poor students at Christmas time!
Ahh, the days of Relief Society Projects!
| From the Mormon owned KSL: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148andsid=16883573
"Their current president, Sister Julie Beck, says her desire is to send a message about the diversity and strength of Latter-day Saint women."
By sending them a book whose message is all about confirmity and obeying?
"The book begins in Biblical times and the expectation that Christ had for the women and His love and value for women, which I think has been lost to a large extent," Beck said."
Of course, you couldn't find examples from the Book of Mormon since there are only three women who actually have names in the entire book.
Beck hopes the book will help break down misconceptions and help people understand "there is no second tier for the women of the Church, that we are not an asterisk in this Church, or in our theology, or in the world."
Hmmmm, can women stand in the circle to bless their own children? Will an educated, spiritual women ever hold the position of bishop, stake president, or prophet? Can a woman sign a church check?
"I think it's important that, as women, we understand the reason for (Relief Society) and why it was established and how it can influence our lives," said Karen Zollinger, a Latter-day Saint from St. George.
Oh? Will it include the story of JS having Emma start the orginzation to keep her busy so she wouldn't find out about his philandering?
"It's positive. It makes women feel like they are worthwhile in this world, where many times women are made to feel less than who they really are," said Kay Canterbury, also a Latter-day Saint from St. George.
Gee, can't imagine who would make them feel unworthy? A woman's twelve year old son holds more power and authority in the church than she ever will.
And these gems from the linked article:
President Beck said the book is designed to be user-friendly for an audience that may not read much.
What Mormon woman has time to read?
“Although our circumstances today might be different from 170 years ago, the principles used in those circumstances are the same,” Erickson said.
Except the eternal principle of polygamy?
“As the Church itself grows exponentially over the years,...."
Still singing that song?
More koolaid for TBMs to drink.
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