The "Purse"onal Journey of a Relief Society Sister

Each year in March, the women of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) commemorate the organization of the Relief Society which took place on March 17, one hundred seventy-one years ago.  Today it is the largest women's organization in the world! The women of the church, under the direction of the Priesthood, combine together for an evening of celebrating womanhood through family life, serving others, and learning gospel principles.  All women of the church can become a member of the Relief Society upon graduation from high school.  I'm not going to say how many years ago that has been for me, but I will say it has been, by far, the best organization I could ever have been involved in throughout my life.  

This year, the theme was The "Purse"onal Journey of a Relief Society Sister."  We had such a wonderful evening together with the sisters in our ward.

 Each table was decorated with a purse that represented a different time in a woman's life.  Ours happened to be the purse we all carried when we were having our children--having had seven children, I certainly remembered carrying that purse for many years!

 I was so proud of Amy.  Even though she had a ton of things to get done before she moved to Texas, she cut out all these little purses, plus used her vinyl cutter to make these darling mirrors for all of us.  She probably made 70 of these!

 The Relief Society President talked about the different aspects of a woman's life, and had different young ladies model with these purses.  In addition, they gave prizes for the heaviest, as well as the lightest, purses.  Mine was right up there with one of the heaviest--since I always have my camera with me.  But the girl who won has a little 18-month-old, so she had so many sippy cups, diapers, wipes, etc. in there that she easily beat me by 2 pounds.

 In the Relief Society, we are all assigned four or five women to visit each month, providing them with a spiritual lesson, as well as a helping hand when needed, and obviously, being a friend.  This little lady is named Martha.  She lives in a rest home now, but one of the sisters brought her to the party.  Amy used to be her visiting teacher, and she still remembered Amy.  Amy always did so many nice things for her.  It was good to see her again.  We haven't seen her for a long time since she moved to the rest home.

 Amy asked for pictures, so I was able to catch a few people afterwards to snap these.  They all asked about Amy and said they missed her so much!  Morgan, the girl on the left, took Amy's place as the new secretary of the Relief Society.  Lisa, the girl on the right, has a beautiful voice and sang with some other sisters, "The Circle of a Woman's Love."  It was beautiful!

 These are some of our dear friends--Angela and Jamie.  Jamie sent a birthday card to Lola, even though she had moved.  Lola had to show it to me on Face Time.  She loved it!  It was a princess birthday card, of course!

 Our Relief Society president (Teresa) is in the center holding the bishop's new baby girl.  She wanted me to be sure to tell Amy that there have been no new surprises at her home!  The girl on the left (Lani) did a game tonight where they gave prizes for items in your purse, such as gum, breath mints, chapstick, or crazy items like a traffic ticket (thank goodness I didn't have one of those), a department store receipt, or family picture.  I always have multiple pictures in my purse, but I wasn't fast enough raising my hand!

 The girl on the left (her name is Amy, too) is one of the counselors in the presidency and took charge of the evening.  She did a great job.  The girl on the right (Kim) is the other counselor and was in charge of the dinner, which was very good!

    And my friend Dena and I just had to show up.  That's really my kind of meeting!

The last event of the night was this beautiful video about a young girl and her purse.  You will really love this video.  Just click the link above and you should be able to go to the sight and watch it.

All, in all, it was such a fun evening.  Thanks to all the presidency and those who planned this wonderful evening.  And thanks, Amy, for helping with all you did before you moved.  It was greatly appreciated!