We are looking forward to this experiment and we hope that you will all be willing to help this grow.
As a presidency we have been looking for ways to draw the sisters of our Stake closer together. At our Spring meeting in 2010 we celebrated "Who We Are" by celebrating the unique women that we are - so many different abilities, challenges, circumstances, struggles and joys! How fortunate we are to be able to learn from so many sisters! In our Spring meeting this year we looked in on and shared the wonderful ways that sisters serve and build and teach and nurture and love one another. It gave us ideas to find small and simple ways to share of ourselves and to serve, that can be truly significant without being overwhelming.
For this coming Spring we have prayerfully sought ways in which we can sustain our Stake Presidency in their desire that we strive to become truly Covenant members in the gospel. By the very nature of our Baptism, we ARE Covenant Women in Parleys Stake! We want to encourage all of us to strive for increased emphasis on our covenants. The culmination of our efforts will be at a Temple Day in March or April at the Salt Lake Temple - A Day of Covenants! We would like to challenge every sister in our Stake to prepare now to enter the Temple together in the Spring! Whether you come to do baptisms, confirmations, initiatory, endowments or sealings, we hope to see you there. If you haven't been before, work to come with us then. All of the wards will be teaching Temple Preparation classes between now and then. Many of the wards have Family History classes - if you have already been to the Temple yourself, perhaps you could work toward "taking" an ancestor with you that day. If you are already endowed, let's try to go "one time more" than is usual for us.
As another step in our preparation for this coming Spring, we invite all of the sisters to read with us beginning in September. As you can see to the side of this post, we have prepared two reading schedules - one for Jesus the Christ and one for the Book of Mormon. At the Fall General Relief Society Meeting (in addition to service and food and a wonderful meeting!) we will kick off our 20-week reading program. You may choose to read either or both of the books (and we won't even complain if you want to get a head start now!) Each week a member of the Stake Relief Society Presidency or one of the Ward Presidents will "blog" on the reading assignment for that week. As it says in the blog header, we encourage all of the sisters in our Stake to comment on those posts so that we can share insights and lift and sustain one another. The comments will be monitored so that only sisters in the Stake will be allowed to comment. We also reserve the right to strive for an uplifting and positive experience. Please be kind and thoughtful.
Sisters, we hope that these next few months will be a time for us to come together and help one another draw closer to our Heavenly Father and our Savior. May you truly feel of the love of the Lord daily in your lives.
"In the things that really matter--our covenants, the commandments, and following the prophet--we need to be completely united. In the non-essentials, we have our agency to handle things as we see fit. But, in all things, regardless of whether we make the same choices or not, we are to treat each other with dignity and respect, both of which are evidences of charity in our hearts and lives."
— Sheri L. Dew (If Life Were Easy, It Wouldn't Be Hard: And Other Reassuring Truths)
