Sister Anderson, our stake relief society president, repeated a quote several times during the meeting and it truly resonated with me: "The Lord built His church by building His people."
As a member of the relief society presidency, I was already assigned to teach the first Sunday of March and I tried to start my lesson preparations a few weeks in advance. However, after attending the stake training, I was compelled to change all my plans. I knew this was led by the Spirit. Therefore, I changed my lesson to Building the Kingdom of God, which is lesson #10 from Latter-Day Saint Woman: Basic Manual for Women, part B.
As I read through the lesson and continued to ponder Sister Anderson's quote, I tried my best to think specifically about my own ward. I am so grateful to belong to such a strong ward. We are blessed with a wonderful Bishop and great ward members. Bishop Ahau has a great vision for the ward and I tried to keep that vision in the forefront of my lesson preparations.
Bishop Ahau has brought the 3 missions of the church back into focus for our ward. Each auxillary presidency is divided into one of these 3 missions led by a member of the bishopric.
- Proclaiming the Gospel (Bishop Ahau)
- Perfecting the Saints (Brother Manisela - 2nd Counselor)
- Redeeming the Dead (Brother Pauni - 1st Counselor)
As members of the church, we all have a responsibility to help with building the kingdom of God. The first question in the lesson asks, What has the Lord given us that we can use in order to accomplish this great work of building up the kingdom?
This is answered in the lesson, "Our Heavenly Father has blessed each of us with time, talents and possessions. He wants us to use these gifts to further the work of the Church. All of us are needed to lead, teach, support and participate. By using our time, talents and possessions freely and willingly, we can help spread the gospel and build the kingdom."
Time - Each of us are blessed with the same amount of time. Brigham Young said, "...you should consider your time golden, it is actually wealth..."
I asked the sisters, "How can we manage our time in order to accomplish our church work and serve in other ways?" Some of their responses included:
- making a schedule
- making visiting teaching a priority
- spending time with our church callings versus watching tv or spending time on the computer
- fulfilling our callings to the best of our abilities & having faith that HF will allow time for all other activities/functions
Talents - Heavenly Father has blessed each of us with talents. How can we learn what the Lord wants us to do with our talents?
When I asked the sisters this question, one of the sisters asked me, "how can we get talents because I don't have any?" I therefore asked our RS Preisdent, Ana Hemaloto, to answer this sister's question. She emphasized to this sister that we all have talents. In order to identify these talents, we have to keep building on our strengths and then share those strenghts. These strengths develop into our talents.
This particular sister's question led to several other sister's raising their hands to describe her many talents. It was nice to hear how well they knew each other and to witness their love for one another as they described their admiration for her talents (which included her big heart and love for others, her decorative skills and her welcoming spirit). There were a few joking responses but the jokes were welcomed and added a nice playful mood to the class.
A sister visiting our ward from California shared her thoughts. She emphasized that we're all blessed with different talents and the only way for our talents to grow or strengthen is to share it with others. No one is going to come and tell you what you're talent is. You know what you're good at and if you don't share that talent with others, you will never grow at it.
I loved her response and am glad she wasn't shy to share it!
I wasn't planning to expand so much on this part of the lesson, but I felt compelled to share a story from the lesson about a couple who was blessed with musical talents. The Ottley's were in Europe studying and touring and received inspiration to return home to Salt Lake City. Once they did, Sister Ottley joined the Mormon Tabenacle Choir and Brother Ottley joined the music department at the University of Utah. They never stopped using their musical talents. A few months after their return to SLC, Brother Ottley was called by the First Presidency of the Church. He was interviewed and soon after named the new director of the Mormon Tabenacle Choir. It was then that the Ottley's realized that the Lord had been preparing them all their lives for this calling. What a perfect example of the blessings we gain from using our talents and blessing the lives of others.
Possessions - Instead of asking a sister to prepare ahead of time to tell the story of the rich man in Mark who asked the Lord how to obtain eternal life, I decided to quiz the relief society sisters on how well they knew the New Testament. They didn't disappoint me! Who doesn't like to show off, right? LoL. I actually had to cut the sisters off because everyone was telling the story and adding more and more detail to it. It was a good laugh.
For those who might read but aren't familiar, the story, a rich man asked the Lord how he could obtain eternal life. The Lord told him to keep the commandments, not to kill, commit adultery, steal or bear false witness and to honor his parents. The rich man told the Lord he was already doing all of those things. The Lord then told him to sell all his riches and follow Him. This made the man very sad because he was very wealthy and didn't want to give up his belongings.
After reviewing this story, I asked the sisters - What personal possessions might we use to build the kingdom? The answers varied:
- tithing
- fast offering
- our time
- blankets
- clothes
- food
- tongan mats, etc
I am a firm believer in this. When we give whole-heartedly, we are blessed 100x more! The Kingdom of God isn't greedy or shady. We should have hearts filled with love for others whether we know them or not. And if that love moves us to share what we have with others, we are indeed bulding the Kingdom of God in our hearts, homes and communities.
In closing, I had a sister read a quote by Elder Dale E. Miller, "As we invest our time, talents and means to build Zion, our hearts are purified. our wisdom increases, celestial habits begin to form and the Holy Spirit prepares us to receive the presence of the Father and the Son. By thrusting in our sickles, we reap a double portion - for ourselves and for the kingdom."
I echo the words of Sister Anderson, "THE LORD BUILT HIS KINGDOM BY BUILDING HIS PEOPLE!" I know that as we use our time, talents and possessions to help Bishop Ahau and his vision for the ward, we will help lift his hands and will witness the work of the Lord move forward in our community. The Lord lives and has provided a way for us to return to His presence. This is my testimony, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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