Whew!!

Ahhh, it is June 20. Which means June 19 is over. Which means my Relief Society program is over!
I think it went well. It was the product of several months of planning and many, many hours of preparation.
We met in the Relief Society room and heard 4 speakers (including me) speak on our theme, and then had a mother/daughters musical number. Then we broke into 2 groups, one going to make cute embellished journals, and the other coming with me to make Brigham Young doughnuts for our lunch dessert.
I had worried about how the doughnut making would go. I practiced making them 3 different times, and thought I had everything all figured out. Then I went and forgot the eggs. D'oh!! Judy was nice enough to race up the road to the nearest grocery store to pick up eggs, and it all ended up ok.
We had displays set up in the cultural hall of ways different women in the ward take "the normal opportunities of daily life" to create beauty. I brought a binder filled with all the e-mail letters I sent from when we first moved to Florida until I started this blog, a time of about 18 months. I have literally hundreds of pages of memories from that time of my life.
We ended with lunch, and then it was clean-up time and time to go home and get some sleep!

Here is the talk that I gave:

Molded Into a Thing of Beauty
When President Uchtdorf gave his powerful talk on our heritage of happiness in the Relief Society broadcast in 2008, I was struck like a thunderbolt with how simple and true was his formula for a happy life: creativity and compassion. I have spent a lot of time since then thinking especially about the first part of his formula, creativity. I loved how he challenged us to think of creativity as far more than painting a picture or baking a cake. He spoke powerfully about how, as we take normal, daily opportunities to mold the unorganized matter of our lives into something of beauty and helpfulness, we not only improve the world around us, but, and perhaps more importantly, we improve the world within ourselves. His talk has helped me to shift my perspective in how I view my everyday life. When I am helping my children with their schoolwork, I am creating enlightenment, knowledge, and, I hope, wisdom in the minds of my children. As I am folding laundry and picking up toys, I am creating a place of order and peace for my family. When I am feeling blue, I try to find some way to improve or beautify something around me, and am amazed at how these simple actions lift my spirits. I love how this simple instruction: create something of beauty and helpfulness, empowers me to find happiness, no matter my circumstances. This is true empowerment!
During the last General Conference, I was equally struck by Sister Beck’s talk, “And upon the Handmaids in Those Days Will I Pour Out My Spirit.” Her words melded with and complemented the second part of President Uchtdorf’s formula, compassion. Elder Uchtdorf broadly defines being compassionate as becoming a true disciple of Christ, that is, becoming instruments in the hands of the Lord. He quoted President Kimball who said, “The more we serve our fellowmen in appropriate ways, the more substance there is to our souls.” What a beautiful concept! In giving away to others, we are enlarging our own souls. He also said, “As we lose ourselves in the service of others, we discover our own lives and our own happiness.”
In Sister Beck’s talk, she spoke of the critical role that the handmaids of the Lord will play in the last days. She said that there has never been a greater need for us to help increase faith and personal righteousness—in ourselves and in others, for us to strengthen families and homes, and for us to be Disciples of Christ willing and able to help those in need. These are our responsibilities as women of God. She promised us that as we nurture as Christ nurtured, power and peace will descend to guide us when help is needed. Sister Beck outlined some of the tools that we have in becoming handmaids of the Lord—in particular qualifying for, seeking, and then following personal revelation.
Toward the end of her talk, she quoted Eliza R. Snow at length. When I first listened to this talk, I hadn’t realized the length of the quotation, and I remember thinking what wise advice I was hearing, and how timely it was for women in our time! When I received my Ensign and read the talk, I discovered that all of those words that impressed me so much were from Eliza R. Snow, from well over a century ago. It amazed me that her advice to the women of the church back then applies so directly and forcibly to the women of the church today. She said, in part, “We want to be ladies in very deed, not according as the world judges, but fit companions of the Gods and Holy Ones… We know the Lord has laid a high responsibility upon us … and the greatest good we can do to ourselves and each other is to refine and cultivate ourselves in everything that is good and ennobling to qualify us for those responsibilities.”
In a sense, she is telling us that there is another great work of creation for us to do—refining and cultivating ourselves to become true handmaids of the Lord. And we know the Lord is pleased with our efforts as we feel the Spirit working through us. Our markers for success, as women of God are far different from the measures of success the world would have us adopt for ourselves.
While I was at the grocery store yesterday I picked up a couple of magazines that were sitting out in the check-out aisle. As I flipped through them, a few headlines caught my eye. “Get Your Best Bikini Body: The Ultimate Secret to a Great Butt, Flat Abs & Major Confidence” (apparently a great bikini body is the ultimate secret to major confidence…). “645 Ways to Look Cute All Summer!” “Meet the Cutest Guys at the Beach!” “Have Your Hottest Summer Hookup!” “Lose Weight in a Hurry: Fit Into Your Skinny Jeans By Next Week.” “What Men Find Hot: They Rate Their Favorite Looks.” And these are just the headlines that are even remotely acceptable to repeat in Church.
These headlines reflect how Satan would have us judge ourselves. How about God? Here are a few headlines from another couple of magazines I happened to have laying around my house. “Finding My Purpose.” “Hope: The Misunderstood Sister.” “Participate in Sincere Prayer.” “Creating Heavenly Homes.” “Putting My Hand in the Lord’s.” “My Guilt was Swept Away.” “Stand Strong and Immovable in Faith.” Any idea where these headlines came from?
President Kimball prophesied that the great work of the Church in the last days will come about “to the degree that the women of the Church reflect righteousness and articulateness in their lives, and to the degree that the women of the Church are seen as distinct and different—in happy ways—from the women of the world.” I can’t think of a better illustration of “distinct and different—in happy ways,” than the contrast between my Ensign magazines and the “Seventeen,” “Allure,” and “Cosmopolitan” magazines that I brought home from Wal-Mart.
Sister Beck closes her talk by bearing witness that “the Lord depends on His daughters to do their part to strengthen the homes of Zion and build His kingdom on the earth.”
How are we doing in this creation—molding ourselves into a thing of true beauty, a handmaid of the Lord? How are we doing in helping the girls in the church—our daughters, sisters, nieces, students, and friends understand and know with conviction that her true measure of success lies not in the proportions of her body, not in the approval of her peers or worldly accolades, not in her clothing, not in her income, and, really, not in any of the passing measures of success that the world would have us buy into, but instead, her true success as a woman, and her true path to happiness lies in developing attributes of Christ, refining and cultivating herself in everything that is good and ennobling, and, ultimately, becoming an instrument in His hand?
Today, as we have the chance to hear our sisters talk about their experiences in this great work, and to see how our sisters create beauty in their lives, I hope we will reflect on what these things mean in our own lives. In this beautiful plan of Salvation, what are we molding into things of beauty, and how are we allowing the Lord to mold us into a thing of beauty?
I testify that as women in the Gospel, our value and power is great. Each of us has the opportunity to become a fit companion of God. Our path to happiness lies in seeing and reaching for our true potential as beautiful things of God.
I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.