Sister Julie B. Beck (Relief Society General President) gave a wonderful talk at the General Relief Society Meeting tonight. I really enjoyed this meeting (although it would help to have it as part of General Conference weekend). Sister Beck said:
One of the most precious commodities we have is time…We show respect for the Lord and the sisters when we use Relief Society time in an inspired way.” She quoted Elder Uchtdorff: “A wise man once distinguished between the noble art of getting things done and the nobler art of leaving things undone. True wisdom in life consists of the elimination of non-essentials…What are the non-essential things that clutter your days and steal your time? What are the habits that you have developed that do not serve a useful purpose? What are the unfinished or unstarted things that could add meaning, vigor, and joy to your life? We can apply his questions to all Relief Society meetings and work.
Sister Beck seems to talk about simplifying frequently. I LOVE this and I wish more Relief Society presidencies truly took it to heart. Many people do not understand that simplicity reduces stress and enables people to actually get more done.
For the past number of years we have called additional Relief Society meetings ‘Home, Family and Personal Enrichment meetings.’ In response to concerns about the complexity of that title and the different interpretations of the purpose of those meetings, a decision has been made that the name ‘Home, Family and Personal Enrichment’ will be discontinued NOW. In counsel with the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles it was determined that rather than give these additional Relief Society meetings a new title, all such meetings and activities will now be referred to simply as Relief Society meetings.
She then went on to say that additional Relief Society meetings should be held at least quarterly, more according to ward needs, but sisters should not feel obligated to attend each and every additional meeting.
Relief Society meetings should be used to: address spiritual and temporal needs of families in the ward, strengthen sisterhood and unity, learn and practice charitable and practical Relief Society skills, increase faith and personal righteousness, strengthen families and homes and provide service to those in need.
She stated that the meetings should be instrumental in teaching the skills and responsibilities of womanhood and motherhood, provident living, spiritual and temporal self-reliance and teaching one another and serve together.
She said that Relief Society presidencies should give priority to topics that will fulfill Relief Society purposes such as marriage and family, homemaking, provident living, self-reliance, compassionate service, temple and family history, sharing the gospel and other needful things.
What are your thoughts about Sister Beck’s talk and the new structure of how Relief Society meetings are to be presented?
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I loved this meeting and I enjoy it so much because you always have the spirit so strong in these meetings. I think that we need to be better with our assignments in Visiting Teaching and also our meetings in general. I think that we have become too relaxed in the way we have been in our meetings and we need to change that and do our visiting teaching like we are doing it to save our own lives…not for numbers but because I feel that if someone has lost their way that we are to help them come back to the church and help them remember how important it is to be there. So many things were mentioned and they were all great but these are things that I feel were stressed as some of the most important things to do.
I thought this was a wonderful meeting. I also liked how the emphasis was on eliminating non-essentials from our lives.