Relief Society Stuff

I had to teach the lesson in Relief Society on March 2.  I didn't have to do it January when I was scheduled because I had a member of our bishopric teach and give us an introduction to Joseph Fielding Smith, the prophet we are learning about this year.  Since I am in the presidency we get to choose our lesson topics.  About a month prior to my lesson I was thinking about what I was going to teach about.  I really like to reread and listen to talks from Jeffrey R. Holland and I remembered that he had one entitled Broken Things to Mend.  I reread that one and started thinking about broken things.  Then I remembered a song from Kenneth Cope called "Broken" that he sang at a Time Out For Women that I went to.  Here are the words to that song.

Broken clouds give rain
Broken soil grows grain
Broken bread feeds man for one more day
Broken storms yield light
The break of day heals night
Broken pride turns blindness into sight

Broken souls that need His mending
Broken hearts for offering
Could it be that God loves broken things?

Broken chains set free
Broken swords bring peace
Broken walls make friends of you and me
To break the ranks of sin
To break the news of Him
To put on Christ till His name feels broken in

Broken souls that need His mending
Broken hearts for offering
I believe that God loves broken things

And yet our broken faith, our broken promises
Sent love to the cross
And still, that broken flesh, that broken heart of His
Offers us such grace and mercy
Covers us with love undeserving

This broken soul that cries for mending
This broken heart for offering
I'm convinced that God loves broken me

Praise His name, my God loves broken things.

So for the next month I kept a running list of all the ways and phrases the work broken can be used.  I had quite a big list going.  The arrows were phrases that could have positive and negative connotations.

Negative

Broken wings

Broken glass

Broken promises

Broken bone

Broke the law

Break the News-------à

Break down

Broken things-watch, window, clock, dishes

Break out-on your face

Broken eggs

Broken families

Broken homes

Broken hearts---------à

Broken mind

Break in the ranks

Break down in communication

Break the bank

Broken pieces------à

Give me a break-----à

Broken bridges

Break up

Broken will

  

 Positive

Broken walls-Berlin Wall

Broke or break a horse

Break the spell-fairy tales, Sleeping Beauty

Break the curse-Harry Potter

Break bread-sacrament, Savior feeding the 5000

Break the news

Break of day

Break the ground/Broken ground

Break open-fruit, coconut

Broken clouds

Breaker at the beach/sea-stops the waves

Break in the storm

Broken hearts

Break the code

Broken chains-prisoners

Break the mold

Put on the brakes-slow down

Some of the things were mentioned in the song.  After writing these things down all month and thinking about this lesson I pulled it together with the song and the talk.  I started off with the song and had the sisters listen to the words then we made a list of the things they heard in the song that were broken.  Then we kept making a list of broken things.  I shared with them my list and they came up with some that I hadn't thought of.  Then we talked about how these things get broken and how they get fixed.  The basic idea was that each of these broken things could have spiritual applications and that it was through the atonement that things really get fixed.  Then I talked about some scripture stories where it seemed that the people in them could be broken-especially when Nephi breaks his bow.  Then we talked about what Elder Holland said we can do to come unto Christ and get our broken things repaired.  There were 3 ways.  1.Desire to change or have things fixed or believe we can get things fixed.  2.  Change what we need to change.  3.  Then take upon us the name of the Savior by remembering our baptismal covenants and acting on them.  At the end I played the poem that Jeffrey R. Holland reads in his talk called The Carpenter of Nazareth.  I never know what to think about my lessons when I am done.  I do get compliments but I wonder if anyone realized the effort that goes into one of these lessons especially when we have to create our lesson from out of thin air.  It is good that we can do that because we can totally go by the spirit and teach what Heavenly Father wants us to but it much  harder when we don't have the whole lesson ready to go for us.  

I try really hard to not have boring lessons.  I overheard someone say once that they didn't like coming to Relief Society because it was boring.  My goals when I teach are to teach with the spirit and not just talk and to make sure I am involving the sisters as much as I can with questions and thought provoking ideas so that they will comment.  I don't have to teach again until June thank goodness!

In January we had an activity that was a progressive dinner.  It was a lot of work and we only had 38 sisters come but that is almost 3 times what we usually get so I was ok with it.  Our theme was Progress since it was the beginning of the year.  We all met at one sister's house to divide up into groups and then we split up to go to 3 different houses where we had appetizers, salads, and soup respectively.  Then we met back up together at one more house where we were all together and could have dessert.  At each house we had a sister give us a short talk on different areas that we can progress in.  Physical-like exercise and nutrition, spiritual and temporal-like food storage and learning how to do different things to be better prepared.  Then at the last house our bishop's wife spoke on how we need to balance these areas in our lives and not get overwhelmed.  It was a really good activity and we got lots of compliments on it.  We had lots of help too with food prep and the sister's letting us use their homes.  This activity has been a tradition in this ward for a long long time and is usually held in December.  December is way too busy and crazy for me so I wanted to push it to January when things were a little calmer.


In March we had another activity to celebrate the Relief Society birthday.  This was a lot of work too but ended up being really nice.  Our theme was Small and Simple Things based on the scripture from Alma and from our January activity when our bishop's wife spoke to us at the progressive dinner.  She spoke about the book from Marjorie Pay Hinkley with the same name.  After we heard her speak in January we decided that would be our theme for March.  I was prompted to incorporate wheat into our activity because wheat is one of the symbols of  Relief Society and there are some great stories about what the early sisters in Relief Society did with wheat.  I found the instructions to grow wheat grass from regular wheat kernels and learned that it took less than 9 days.  When I was prompted to use this idea of wheat I seriously had 9 days before the activity.  Well it worked out just great!  I grew 12 little planters of wheat to use in our center pieces. Since our theme was "small and simple" all of our food was small.  We had mini slider sandwiches, mini cupcakes, mini cups of fruit salad and mini cups of veggies and dip.  We had planned on about 60 people coming but we only had 28.  That meant there was lots of food to eat.  We had a lot of help again as well.  We had about 8 sisters come and help us with food prep right before the activity started.  We were done and cleaned up before 8pm and that was really nice too!  I took home about 30 mini cupcakes and proceeded to eat almost everyone of them over the next few days.  Curse you mini cupcakes!

 This is the favor that we gave out at our activity.  It was a little bag of wheat with the directions on how to grow it typed out and rolled up on the scroll and a few pieces of chocolate.  Our colors were purple and green so everything was purple and green!

This is one of pots of wheat that I grew.  I didn't grow it in this pot but in a little plastic saucer and then put the saucer in the pot.  I did paint the pots and put the ribbon around them for the decorations. It is being weighed for Cayden's science project.