By: Ashley Myers Henderson
President Gordon B. Hinckley praised women for their divine role in God’s plan at the annual General Relief Society meeting Saturday, Sept. 23, 2006; the evening was themed around feeling the Lord’s love daily.
Hinckley honored women and the Relief Society, saying the organization stands for love, education, self-reliance, sacrifice, faith and proper prioritizing.
“What a glorious organization the Relief Society is,” he said. “There’s nothing to compare with it in the entire world.”
He also said that although men and women have different roles in the Lord’s kingdom, women’s roles are “equally important.” Women are essential characters in God’s plan of happiness, he said.
“You are 50 percent of the membership of the Church, and you are the mothers of the other 50 percent,” Hinckley said. “No one can dismiss you lightly.”
More than 20,000 women filled the Conference Center, while millions of others watched the broadcast in their local church buildings across the world. Currently, more than 5 million women are members of the Relief Society, Hinckley said.
Sister Bonnie D. Parkin, Relief Society general president, stressed the importance of feeling the Lord’s love everyday and trying to help others feel that love. Parkin urged women to understand that they don’t have to be perfect to deserve Christ’s love.
“We must acknowledge that perfection is a process, … and we must appreciate that life is a journey,” she said.
Parkin said feeling the Lord’s love daily is one of the gospel’s greatest gifts and that women need to recognize that the Lord’s love will never fail them.
“[It] should be the source of our motivation to serve others,” she said. “It must be both our point of origin and our destination.”
Sister Kathleen H. Hughes, first counselor in the general presidency, advised women to remember times when the Lord strengthened them in their hours of need, explaining that women can rely on these memories when another sad or discouraging time comes along.
“My best anecdote [for hard times] is my memory of when Christ’s love has come to life for me,” she said. “Moments can be fleeting, but the memories lasting.”
Hughes said God manifests his love for his children through the simple and everyday parts of their lives. Even when the obligations, frustrations and disappointments pile up, women can still find manifestations of the Lord’s love, she said.
“The Lord is everywhere when we open our eyes and our hearts to his love,” she said.
Anne C. Pingree, second counselor in the general presidency, said once women feel the Lord’s touch in the most personal ways, they should act in a way that reflects their knowledge of the gospel.
“We must demonstrate that faith in the Lord has penetrated deeply enough to move us to action,” she said.
Seeking to make their actions consistent with their faith, women may need to make “course corrections” when they recognize mistakes and repair hurt feelings, she said. It is those course corrections that determine “how we will touch each other, literally and figuratively,” Pingree said.
