Sisterhood

I had the opportunity to teach Relief Society yesterday. As a member of the presidency, I get to teach roughly once every three months, and I choose the topic. Our focus for the year is on service, so I figured that would make for good lesson material. I worked under that assumption until yesterday. The quotes and talks I found were good, but I felt that something was missing. So I prayed and waited for inspiration.

That's why I spent the Sunday School hour of church standing in the church library, sketching out my lesson plan. I had several quotes to choose from and a rough idea, but that was it. Even after I had it planned, I made changes in the minutes before I stood to teach and then again as I was teaching. I believe that good teachers prepare much more than they need to, plan, then improvise changes as needed. Rather than teaching about service, I taught about sisterhood through service.

My main quote that I kept referring to was from Lucy Mack Smith, the mother of Joseph Smith. She said, “We must cherish one another, watch over one another, comfort one another and gain instruction, that we may all sit down in heaven together.”

Want to read the other quotes I used?

1. The Savior taught that the first and great commandment is: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind… And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” The Savior’s words are simple, yet their meaning is profound and deeply significant. We are to love God and to love and care for our neighbors as ourselves. Imagine what good we can do in the world if we all join together, united as followers of Christ, anxiously and busily responding to the needs of others and serving those around us—our families, our friends, our neighbors, our fellow citizens. -Elder M. Russell Ballard, OCTOBER 2012 Be Anxiously Engaged 

1. That simple practice is: In your morning prayer each new day, ask Heavenly Father to guide you to recognize an opportunity to serve one of His precious children. Then go throughout the day with your heart full of faith and love, looking for someone to help... If you do this, your spiritual sensitivities will be enlarged and you will discover opportunities to serve that you never before realized were possible.-Elder M. Russell Ballard, OCTOBER 2012 Be Anxiously Engaged  

1. Mosiah18: 8-11 

1. For some, serving or ministering one by one, following the Savior’s example, doesn’t come easily. But with practice, each of us can become more like the Savior as we serve God’s children. To help us better love one another, I would like to suggest four words to remember: “First observe, then serve.”-Sister Linda K. Burton, OCTOBER 2012 First Observe, Then Serve

1. One night our little son Richard, who had a heart problem, awoke crying. … Normally my wife always got up to take care of a crying baby, but this time I said, ‘I’ll take care of him. Because of his problem, when he began to cry, his little heart would pound very rapidly. He would throw up and soil the bed clothing. That night I held him very close to try to calm his racing heart and stop his crying as I changed his clothes and put on new bedsheets. I held him until he went to sleep. I didn’t know then that just a few months later he would pass away. I will always remember holding him in my arms in the middle of that night. - Elder Richard G. Scott, APRIL 2011 The Eternal Blessings of Marriage 

1. In the strength of the Lord, we “can do all things.” We continually seek His guidance in prayer, in the scriptures, and in the whisperings of the Holy Ghost. One sister, faced with an overwhelming assignment, wrote, “Sometimes I wonder if the sisters in the early history of the Church didn’t, like us, put their heads on their pillows at night and pray, ‘Whatever tomorrow brings, will Thou help me through it?’” Then she wrote, “One of the blessings is [that] we have each other and we are in this together!” Whatever our circumstances, wherever we are along the path toward salvation, we unite as one in our commitment to the Savior. We sustain one another in His service. -– Sister Carol F. McConkie, OCTOBER 2015 Here to Serve a Righteous Cause 

1. None of us is perfect. We have all made mistakes. But we repent so that we may be better and “retain the name [of Christ] written always in [our] hearts.” When we serve in the name of the Lord, with purity of heart, we reflect the Savior’s love and give others a glimpse of heaven. -– Sister Carol F. McConkie, OCTOBER 2015 Here to Serve a Righteous Cause 

1. I love the women of the Church, young and old. I have seen your strength. I have seen your faith. You have something to give and are willing to give it. You do this without fanfare or publicity, drawing attention to the God we worship, not yourselves, and with no thought of what you will receive. That’s what disciples do! - Sister Linda K. Burton,  APRIL 2014 Wanted: Hands and Hearts to Hasten the Work

1. Though in many ways we are different and unique, we also acknowledge that we are all daughters of the same Heavenly Father, which makes us sisters. We are unified in building the kingdom of God and in the covenants which we have made, no matter what our circumstances. This combined assembly is, without a doubt, the most glorious sisterhood upon the face of the earth! To be sisters implies that there is an unbreakable bond between us. Sisters take care of each other, watch out for each other, comfort each other, and are there for each other through thick and thin. The Lord has said, “I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine.” -Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson, APRIL 2014 Sisterhood: Oh, How We Need Each Other 

1. (W)e have each other—sisters in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have been blessed with tender and charitable natures which enable us to render Christlike love and service to those around us. As we look beyond our differences in age, culture, and circumstance to nurture and serve one another, we will be filled with the pure love of Christ and the inspiration which leads us to know when and whom to serve. -Sister Bonnie L. Oscarson, APRIL 2014 Sisterhood: Oh, How We Need Each Other 

1.  Oh, how we need each other. Those of us who are old need you who are young. And, hopefully, you who are young need some of us who are old. It is a sociological fact that women need women. We need deep and satisfying and loyal friendships with each other. - Sister Marjorie P. Hinckley, Glimpses into the Life and Heart of Marjorie Pay Hinckley, ed. Virginia H. Pearce (1999), 254–55.