I give a 5-minute message at the beginning of our weekday Relief Society activity which happens 9-10 times a year.. This is the message I shared last night at our service activity. We had sisters ages 8 and older there, preparing fleece blankets, cards, framed gospel art, and necklaces for people in El Salvador. I told someone I would post my message because she wasn’t able to be there. I stumbled a little as I spoke, trying to remember what I prepared to say without reading from my notes. This is the more complete version of what I hoped to say.
When I was about 10-years-old, I was invited to participate with the Relief Society in a quilting activity. I came by myself because my mom wasn’t able to attend. I walked to the church and sat down next to my white-haired neighbor. The sisters showed me how to thread the needle and begin the stitches on the quilt that rested before us in the frame. My stitches weren’t tiny like the others, but I remember the women were so kind to me and said I was doing a good job. I ran home at dinnertime and told my mom I wanted to go back and spend some more time quilting.
Why do I remember this experience? I have an idea, but first I want to develop it with another story.
Just before Jesus went to Jerusalem for the last time, he was in Bethany, in the home of Simon the leper and a woman having an alabaster box of precious, expensive oil came and anointed Jesus’ head. (Mark 14) Some thought it a “waste” of precious money. Jesus said, “Let her alone; why trouble ye her? She hath wrought a good work on me…She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.” In other words, he taught that her generous act showed that she understood that he was the Christ (The Anointed One).
Jesus also said, “Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of her for a memorial of her.” In the Gospel of Mark, the woman is not named, but her action is. Through her act, she testified of Christ.
Going back to my experience as a 10-year-old girl, quilting with the Relief Society sisters, perhaps I remember this experience because this was my first glimpse into what Relief Society really is: more than a club, more than a class, more than a place to go. It is the Lord’s organization for women of covenant, where women again and again do as the unnamed woman disciple: we do what we can to show that Jesus is the Christ. I couldn’t have put it into these words when I was ten, but I felt something special was going on with these sisters.
Beyond quilts and casseroles, we are true disciples when are patient with weaknesses in others and in ourselves, giving the benefit of the doubt. We do what we can and allow the Lord to make up the difference. Relief Society is one way the Lord helps us keep our baptismal covenant to always remember him and keep his commandments to serve others. I hope you remember that as you serve. You are a woman or young woman of covenant.