Becoming Meek

Relief Society Purposes:

*Increase faith and personal righteousness

*Strengthen families and homes

*Seek out and help those in need

FAITH

Lesson Review: "Be Meek and Lowly of Heart" by Elder Ulisses Soares

Doctrine: "Meekness is vital for us to become more Christlike.  Without it we won't be able to develop other important virtues."

Invitation to Action: 

*How do I react when someone does not comply with my desires the moment I want them to?

*How do I react when people disagree with my ideas, even though I am absolutely sure that my ideas represent the proper solution to a problem?

*What is my response when someone offends me, critiques my efforts, or is simply unkind because he/she is in a bad mood?

Promised Blessings: "Upon acknowledging our dedication and perseverance, the Lord will give us that which we are not able to attain due to our imperfections and human weaknesses."

FAMILY

Many of us set goals for our new year.  What have you decided to do to improve during 2014?  Did you know that one goal that consistently tops New Year's Resolutions lists is "to appreciate loved ones and spend more time with family"?  Why not take that goal a step farther and set a goal that will improve your family this year?  If we are focused on improving our families than we will be spending time with them along the way! What is one thing that YOU could you do to make your family stronger in 2014?

Maybe you want to work on consistent family prayers, family scripture reading or Family Home Evenings.  If you are already good about doing these spiritual-related goals, you may want to consider family financial, social,or mental and health-related goals!

http://family.go.com/parenting/pkg-teen/article-783845-family-new-year-resolutions-t/

RELIEF

.....And while we're on the topic of goals....This might be a great time to make some goals about doing our Visiting Teaching better than ever this year!!

Elder Henry B. Eyring said:

"You are called to represent the Savior. Your voice to testify becomes the same as His voice, your hands to lift the same as His hands. His work is to bless His Father’s spirit children with the opportunity to choose eternal life. So, your calling is to bless lives. That will be true even in the most ordinary tasks you are assigned and in moments when you might be doing something not apparently connected to your call. Just the way you smile or the way you offer to help someone can build their faith. And should you forget who you are, just the way you speak and the way you behave can destroy faith.

Your call has eternal consequences for others and for you. In the world to come, thousands may call your name blessed, even more than the people you serve here. They will be the ancestors and the descendants of those who chose eternal life because of something you said or did, or even what you were. If someone rejects the Savior’s invitation because you did not do all you could have done, their sorrow will be yours. You see, there are no small callings to represent the Lord. Your call carries grave responsibility. But you need not fear, because with your call come great promises.

One of those promises is the second thing you need to know. It is that the Lord will guide you by revelation just as He called you. You must ask in faith for revelation to know what you are to do. With your call comes the promise that answers will come. But that guidance will come only when the Lord is sure you will obey. To know His will you must be committed to do it. The words “Thy will be done,” written in the heart, are the window to revelation."

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2002/10/rise-to-your-call?lang=eng

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

* Next year our meeting times will begin at 9:00 am with Sacrament Meeting first.

We wish you all a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

January 5 - Susan C.

January 5- Ruth Ann C.

January 9 - Nancy M. (Our ward birthday greeter!!)

January 18 - Renae H.

January 27 - Susan C.

January 28 - Becca H.

January 31 - Katie W. (Our newest Relief Society sister!)

The Windows of Heaven

Relief Society Purposes:

*Increase faith and personal righteousness

*Strengthen families and homes

*Seek out and help those in need

FAITH

Lesson Review: "The Windows of Heaven" Elder David A. Bednar

Doctrine: "Spiritual and temporal blessings come into our lives as we live the law of tithing."

Invitation to Action: "To those of you who presently are not obeying the law of tithing, I invite you to consider your ways and repent.  I testify that by your obedience to this law of the Lord, the windows of heaven will be opened to you.  Please do not procrastinate the day of your repentance."

Promised Blessings: "I testify that as we are spiritually attentive and observant, we will be blessed with eyes that see more clearly, ears that hear more consistently, and hearts that understand more fully the significance and subtlety of His ways, His thoughts, and His blessings in our lives."

"I promise that as you and I observe and keep the law of tithing, indeed the windows of heaven will be opened and spiritual and temporal blessings will be poured out such that there shall not be room enough to receive them (see Malachi 3:10)."

Relief Society Purposes:

*Increase faith and personal righteousness

*Strengthen families and homes

*Seek out and help those in need

FAITH

Lesson Review: "Reflections on the Mission of Jesus Christ" (Lorenzo Snow - Ch 24)

Key Doctrine: "Jesus Christ came into the world to do the will of the Father and open the way for our peace, happiness, and exaltation."

Invitation to Action:  As you ponder the Savior's desire to "seek the honor and glory of His father," think about what you need to do to follow God's will.

Promised Blessings: Jesus Christ sought "the honor and glory of His Father, and to accomplish the work of His Father who sent Him. Herein lay the secret of His prosperity; and herein lies the secret of the prosperity of every individual who works upon the same principle."

 December 22nd lesson -  Teachings For Our Times, "The Windows of Heaven" Elder Bednar

December 29th - This will be a fifth Sunday lesson with the men and women meeting together.

FAMILY

If you are looking for more Christmas-centered family activities, you may want to consider attending the Ritchie's live Nativity that they do every year! Many ward members are participating in this production.

Times for the nativity are every Monday night until Christmas, at 6:15 and again at 7:00.  Also December 22nd at the same times, and on Christmas Eve at 5:15 and 6:00.

Dress warm and enjoy the Christmas program and the treats following!

 

HAVE A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND CHRISTMAS SEASON SPENT WITH YOUR FAMILY AND LOVED ONES!!!!
 

RELIEF

 Please try to fit Visiting Teaching into your busy schedules this week, if you haven't yet had a chance to do so!

Announcements:

* The last couple of weeks have been so wonderful with our incredible ward Christmas Open House, and this last week with the Cantata that we attended at the Lutheran Church!  We had such a great turn-out, and everyone seemed to enjoy that opportunity very much.  Thanks for coming, to everyone who could attend that!  Hopefully the rest of you can come next year!!

*Next year, our meeting times will be changing to 9:00 a.m. and meetings will proceed in the same order with sacrament meeting first.

Relief Society Purposes:

*Increase faith and personal righteousness

*Strengthen families and homes

*Seek out and help those in need

FAITH

Lesson Review: "The Prophet Joseph Smith" (Lorenzo Snow ch 23)

Key Doctrine: 

"Each of us can gain a testimony that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the gospel was restored through him."

Invitation to Action:

Joseph Smith "gradually became great in the knowledge of the things of God".  What can we do to follow the Prophet's example as we seek to grow spiritually?

Promised Blessings:

Lorenzo Snow "received, in the most tangible and satisfactory manner, a divine manifestation - the promised blessing - a knowledge of this work." And we can, too!  We are not "left to depend upon the testimony" of anyone or anything, but "we might know for ourselves.  It is an individual knowledge."

 December 15th lesson -  Last lesson from Teachings of Lorenzo Snow-Reflections on the Mission of Jesus Christ  (Lorenzo Snow - Ch. 24)

FAMILY

If you are looking for more Christmas-centered family activities, you may want to consider attending the Ritchie's live Nativity that they do every year:

Zoe Ricks and Marcus Roberts narrating

Lakoda and Jade Ricks with one of the sheep

Other members of our ward participating in this production are members from the Wasden, Zollinger, Hinckley, Widerburg, Ritchie, Hartline, Eastin and Spencer families.  There may even be some other families participating that I don't know about!

This production will be running every Monday night until Christmas, at 6:15 and again at 7:00.  Also December 22nd at the same times, and on Christmas Eve at 5:15 and 6:00.

Dress warm and enjoy the Christmas program and the treats following!

RELIEF

Please try to fit visiting teaching into your schedules early this month.  It's going to get busier and busier!  This would be a great week.... ;)

Wow!  The Christmas Open House and Concert turned out so great!!  Thank you, thank you to everyone who helped with this great event.  Our Relief Society Presidency worked especially hard to make this happen and we thank them for all of their hard work and the dedication of their time! Following are some pictures that don't even do justice to how beautifully set up, well-planned and arranged everything was for the Open House:

Announcements:

* December 14th - (this Saturday at 11:00 a.m.) - Lutheran Church Cantata Performance and Luncheon.  Please make an effort to attend! Any questions? Please contact a member of the RS Presidency.

Relief Society Purposes:

*Increase faith and personal righteousness

*Strengthen families and homes

*Seek out and help those in need

FAITH

Lesson Review: "I Will Not Fail Thee, Nor Forsake Thee" (President Thomas S. Monson)

Key Doctrine: 

"Our Heavenly Father...knows that we learn and grow and become stronger as we face and survive the trials through which we pass."

"Were it not for challenges to overcome and problems to solve, we would remain much as we are, with little or no progress toward our goal of eternal life."

Invitation to Action:

"This should be our purpose - to persevere and endure, yes, but also to become more spiritually refined as we make our way through sunshine and sorrow."

Promised Blessings:

"From the bed of pain, from the pillow wet with tears, we are lifted heavenward by that divine assurance and precious promise: 'I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.' Such comfort is priceless."

 December 8th lesson - The Prophet Joseph Smith (Lorenzo Snow - Ch. 23)

FAMILY

The Christmas season is such a special time to create new family traditions and build upon the ones that you already have.  We all have traditions that are a part of our heritage.  It seems that we also tend to form new traditions with our own families, either intentionally or unknowingly. This season is a great time to be deliberate about the traditions we start in our homes!  It's a great idea to think about what you would like to teach your children or see happen in your family and build a tradition around it!  Would you like to enforce family unity?  Build community? Teach unselfishness and giving? Strengthen faith and build testimonies? Have fun as a family and spend more time together?  Teach a skill?

This year, I wanted to get my younger children to focus less on the Santa Claus aspect of Christmas and more on the birth of Christ. More on the miraculous wonder and less on the "magical."  One night as I was tucking my little ones into bed I suddenly remembered this book that we got last year:

 

This book has all the fun, traditional Christmas songs, and also all of our primary songbook and hymnal Christmas carols. It is also filled with the most beautiful art work!  

I have started singing three songs from it each evening when I tuck the younger kids into bed.  I think a new tradition has begun! They get to look at the pictures and internalize the words as I sing, and I really believe that they will begin to feel the miraculous wonder of Christ's birth.

What would you like to teach your family this season?  What tradition might you start this year?

RELIEF

“The only system which could provide succor and comfort across a church so large in a world so varied would be through individual servants near the people in need. The Lord had seen that coming from the beginning of Relief Society.

He set a pattern in place. Two Relief Society sisters accept their assignment to visit another as a call from the Lord” (Henry B. Eyring, “The Enduring Legacy of Relief Society,” Liahona, Nov. 2009, 123; see also Daughters in My Kingdom, page 110).

Missionary news:

Sister Hammer has written us a letter!:

      "I hear that you are in the new church building.  That is exciting but the excitement will be all over when I get home.

     All is going well here.  I am working in the LDS Employment resource center here in San Jose, California.  We don't get to do any gospel teaching but hopefully what we do for people, both members and nonmembers will do missionary work.  We help people prepare to go out and find work with resumes, applications, and counseling.  There is more to that than I realized.

      My companion is sister Victoria Chambers from Arizona.  She 82 years old and has been here a little over a year.  She does all the driving in all of this traffic.  She is a real go getter and can run my legs off, but so patient with my slow learning.  I really enjoy her company.  I also have 2 young sister missionaries for roommates.  One is from Tonga and one is from Hawaii.  They are lots of fun and we have gotten them to dance for us.  They are really good.  They teach the Tongan people here.  The population here is more Asian, Tongan, Mexican and Black than Caucasian.  We are the minority. 

      Pres. Watkins and the missionaries in the office as so good to us.  Sister Chambers and I are the only single senior sister missionaries and they make sure we are well taken care of.

      I do so hope all is well for all of you and wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas."

It is so good to hear from her!  I hope that we can all take a minute and write to our ward missionaries.  I'm sure that they would all like to hear from everyone from home at this time of the year especially!! (addresses can be found by clicking on the "Missionaries" button at the side of the blog)

 Announcements: 

*Choir practice for the Ward "Celebration of Christ" will be this Sunday (Dec 1st) from 5:00 p.m. to 6:15! If you have any questions about this Choir, please contact Sister Cooley.

*If you are participating in the Art Display for the "Celebration of Christ" program, please get your art work and testimonies turned in to Sister Briggs as soon as possible.  This is the big week!!

*December 5th - 7th - This Thursday, Friday and Saturday - Burton 4th Ward's "Celebration of Christ" Christmas Concert and Art Display.  Please invite everyone that you think could benefit and be up-lifted by this event!

* December 14th - (a Saturday at 11:00 a.m.) - Lutheran Church Cantata Performance and Luncheon.  Please make an effort to attend! Any questions? Please contact a member of the RS Presidency.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Relief Society Purposes:

*Increase faith and personal righteousness

*Strengthen families and homes

*Seek out and help those in need

FAITH

Lesson Review: "Doing Good to Others" (Lorenzo Snow - Ch.22

Key Doctrine: 

"We have been sent into the world to do good to others; and in doing good to others we do good to ourselves."

"We are to 'love the Lord, our God, with all our might, with all our mind, and with all our strength, and our neighbor as ourself.' "

Invitation to Action:

"Try to be a little better to-day than yesterday"

"Be ready to do for others more than you would expect from them if circumstances were reversed."

"Pray diligently for this spirit of philanthropy, this expansion of thought and feeling, and for power and ability to labor earnestly in the interest of Messiah's kingdom.

Promised Blessings:

"....Let your minds be expanded to comprehend and look after the interest of your friends that are around you, and where it is in your power to secure benefits to your friends do so, and in so doing you will find that those things which you need will come into your hands quicker than if you labor entirely to secure them to yourselves independent of regarding the interests of your friends.  I know this to be a good and important principle."

 December 1st - We won't have Relief Society because of the building dedication.

FAMILY

Have a Happy Thanksgiving with your family!!

 

 

Families are one of the greatest things that we have to be grateful for!

RELIEF

“You are Relief Society missionaries.  Be as Saviors on Mount Zion to your sisters.  Their souls are precious in the sight of God.  Don’t spare any effort to bring His sheep into the fold – the Savior did not!” -Elder Mark E. Peterson

“Visiting Teaching is real friendship.  We should get to know these few sisters for whom we are responsible.”

-Camilla Eyring Kimball

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Announcements: 

*Choir practice for the Ward "Celebration of Christ" will be Sundays from 5:00 p.m. to 6:15! If you have any questions about this Choir, please contact Sister Cooley.

* Please contact Sister Ferguson if you are participating in the art/photography for the Christmas display.  She needs to know the size of your art and/or photography, and if you need an easel to display it on.  If you need table space for your form of art, please let her know that, as well.

*December 1st - Dedication of our new meetinghouse!!! We will only have sacrament meeting next week, and we will meet at 12:00.

*December 5th - 7th - Burton 4th Ward's "Celebration of Christ" Christmas Concert and Art Display.  Please keep doing your part to make this event a success!!

* December 14th - (a Saturday at 11:00 a.m.) - Lutheran Church Cantata Performance and Luncheon.  Please make an effort to attend! Any questions? Please contact a member of the RS Presidency.

Week of November 10th

Relief Society Purposes:

*Increase faith and personal righteousness

*Strengthen families and homes

*Seek out and help those in need

FAITH

Lesson Review: "Loving God More Than We Love The World (Lorenzo Snow - Ch.21)

Key Doctrine: 

"When people allow worldliness to pervade their minds and hearts, they turn their backs on eternal principles."

"We have got to love God more than we love the world, more than we love gold or silver, and love our neighbor as ourselves."

Invitation to Action:

How can we take care of our temporal needs without being overcome by worldliness?

How can our love for God help us avoid being overcome by worldliness?

Promised Blessings:

"...through his faithfulness he shall possess thrones, principalities and powers, his children becoming as numerous as the stars in the firmament or the sands on the sea shore.  Who, I ask, has any greater prospect than this?"

November 24 Lesson Topic: 

  Teachings For Our Time "I Will Not Fail Thee Nor Forsake Thee" (President Monson) 

 https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/i-will-not-fail-thee-nor-forsake-thee

FAMILY

The youth curriculum for November is:  Temporal and Spiritual Self Reliance.  There are some great ideas if you click on the link below, that will make for some great lessons and conversations with your children and youth!

https://www.lds.org/youth/learn/yw/self-reliance?lang=eng

"The outlines in this unit will help the youth understand the importance of becoming spiritually and temporally self-reliant. Although they are in their youth, these young people have been blessed with the gift of agency, and they are learning how to set their own course and find answers to their own problems in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The more self-reliant they become, the more freedom they will enjoy. They will be better prepared to serve the Lord, strengthen their families, and fulfill their future roles as wives and mothers, husbands and fathers."

RELIEF

" 'Lucy Mack Smith's counsel to the first Relief Society sisters is more relevant today than ever before: "We must cherish one another, watch over one another, comfort one another and gain instruction, that we may all sit down in heaven together.'  This is covenant keeping and visiting teaching at its finest!"

-Sister Burton, Relief Society General President

Announcements: 

*Choir practice for the Ward Christmas Concert will be Sundays from 5:00 p.m. to 6:15! If you have any questions about the Christmas Concert Choir, please contact Sister Cooley.

*November 23rd - Choir practice at Sister Edstrom's home, at 9:00 a.m. for the Thanksgiving song.

* Please contact Sister Ferguson if you are participating in the art/photography for the Christmas display.  She needs to know the size of your art and/or photography, and if you need an easel to display it on.  If you need table space for your form of art, please let her know that, as well.

*December 1st - Dedication of our new meetinghouse!!!

*December 5th - 7th - Burton 4th Ward Christmas Concert and Art Display.  Please keep doing your part to make this event a success!!

* December 14th - (a Saturday at 11:00 a.m.) - Lutheran Church Cantata Performance and Luncheon.  Please make an effort to attend! Any questions? Please contact a member of the RS Presidency.

Happy Birthday this week to: 

Grethe P.(Nov. 17th),  Lynn A (Nov. 18th), Mindy H (Nov. 22nd), Belinda R. (Nov.28th)!