An Excerpt of Sister Julie B Beck's Talk from The General Relief Society Meeting

"Home, Family and Personal Enrichment Meeting" changed to "Relief Society Meeting"

Sister Beck said weekly meetings on Sunday are held as part of the regular three-hour block. Additional Relief Society meetings can also be held to help sisters "learn and accomplish the charitable and practical responsibilities of the Relief Society."

She then announced that in response to concerns about the complexity of the title "home, family and personal enrichment meetings" — as well as the different interpretations about the purpose of those meetings – that the name will be discontinued.

"In counsel with the First Presidency and 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. Individual Relief Society meetings that are not held on Sunday will be called whatever they are: Relief Society service, classes, projects, conferences or workshops."

The additional meetings can be valuable supplements to Sunday instruction. However, she added, sisters should not feel that attendance is mandatory.

"These meetings are meant to be instrumental in teaching the skills and responsibilities of womanhood and motherhood in the Lord's plan. It is here that women learn and apply principles of provident living and spiritual and temporal self-reliance and they also increase in sisterhood and unity as they teach one another and serve together."

Visiting Teaching

Sister Beck said most of the essential Relief Society work doesn't happen in meetings. "A sister has no other responsibility outside of her family that has the potential to do as much good as does visiting teaching."

Visiting teaching, she said, becomes a faith-based work when the focus is on people rather than percentages. "In reality, visiting teaching is never finished. It is more a way of life than a task. Faithfully serving as a visiting teacher is evidence of our discipleship."

Sister Beck said compassionate service and assistance with the welfare needs of individuals and families is an outgrowth of visiting teaching. "We can know with certainly that our Father in Heaven knows us personally because He sends us to be His hands and heart to those in need. As we do so, our faith in Him is strengthened."

(For the full article, click here)

Enrichment Activity - Food Storage Recipes

We had such a great time cooking and discussing the things we could do for our families. And here are the recipes! Enjoy!


Sister Nuek-Chin Ee's special rice recipe:

3 cups brown rice (washed)
1 packet mixed beans (soaked for at least a few hours)
1 can tuna (in olive oil)
water
dried seaweed (cut up for garnishing)
salt to taste


1. Mix together the rice, the beans, oil from the tuna, and salt.
2. Add enough water to the mixture and cook (in a rice cooker).
3. When the rice is cooked, mix in the tuna.
4. Serve with shredded dried seaweed.


Sister Lillian Lim's special beehoon recipe:


1 packet brown rice beehoon (soaked until soft)
1 large can sardine (mashed to bite size)
1 small tub kimchi (cut to bite size)
tomato sauce to taste
water


1. Pour sardine into wok to heat up.
2. Add kimchi and tomato sauce.
3. Add beehoon and mix everything up.
4. Add water as required and fry until cooked.

Enrichment

I want to thank President and Sister Renner for allowing us to have our Enrichment Activity in their home and for sharing their knowledge and expertise with us.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to learn about how to raise rabbits for food, how to start a vegetable garden, how to rear fish for food as well as to generate some income from it.

Message from Sister Claire

As all of us can see the Enrichment announcement for April, kindly pass along this message to all sisters you meet, active or less active. We need to get a commitment from them so that we can plan for the car pool. ^__^

Please spread the word from now until then, so that nobody is caught by surprise. Everyone can plan ahead instead.

See you there, sisters! 

Miracles - Our Hands Are His Hands

Remember when President Renner spoke to us last Sunday about miracles and after that I shared with you about miracles that happened when I was preparing the Relief Society Birthday celebration? I experienced another one today.

Remember also that I highlighted a few articles from the Ensign and Liahona that I felt were really important to us? I've posted the Ensign magazine on the right so that you can click on it and read them.

Anyway, one of the articles I mentioned was Focussing on the Lord's Work of Salvation by Julie B Beck, our current General Relief Society President. One of the things she mentioned was: "Visiting teachers minister in behalf of the Savior. Our hands are His hands, our love is His love, and our service is His service."

Now, how did that happen? How was it that our chosen theme was also HANDS? Sisters, I believe that was a miracle. The Lord truly was mindful of us and wanted us to know and understand this concept.

There's another article that echoes the one above entitled: on faith: Relief Society united worldwide in faith and service to others.

The two Enrichment Meetings we had (The Visiting Teaching Workshop and The Relief Society Birthday) truly are tied together and you'll be able to see the connection by reading these articles. Just click on the titles.