The Relief Society ( RS ) is an official philanthropic and educational and auxiliary organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The company was founded in 1842 in Nauvoo, Illinois, United States, and has approximately 7.1 million members in over 188 countries and territories. [2] Relief Society is often referred to by churches and others as "one of the oldest and largest women's organizations in the world."
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Missions
The Relief Society motto, taken from 1 Corinthians 13: 8, is "Love never fails." The Relief Society objective reads, "Relief Society helps prepare women for the blessings of eternal life as they increase faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and His Atonement, strengthen individuals, families and homes through ordinances and covenants, and work in unity to help those in need. "
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History
Beginning
In the spring of 1842, Sarah Granger Kimball and her tailor, Margaret A. Cook, discussed combining their efforts to sew clothes for the workers who built the Nauvoo Temple of the Latter-day Saints. They are determined to invite their neighbors to help create the Women's Union. Kimball asked Eliza R. Snow to write a constitution and rules for the organization to be submitted to Joseph Smith's Church President for review. After reviewing the document, Smith called them "the best he had ever seen" but said, "this is not what you want to be." Tell the nuns their offerings are accepted by God, and He has something better for them than the written constitution. I will arrange the women... after the pattern of the priesthood. "
Twenty Mormon women gathered on Thursday, March 17, 1842 in a second-floor meeting room at the Smith Brick Store in Nauvoo to discuss the establishment of the Women's Society with Joseph Smith, John Taylor and Willard Richards. Smith, John Taylor, and Richards sat on the platform at the top of the room with the women facing them. "The Spirit of the Fire Like Fire" was sung, and Taylor opened the meeting with prayer. The women in attendance were Emma Hale Smith, Sarah M. Cleveland, Phebe Ann Hawkes, Elizabeth Jones, Sophia Packard, Phil Merrick, Martha McBride Knight, Desdemona Fulmer, Elizabeth Ann Whitney, Leonora Taylor, Bathsheba W. Smith, Phebe M. Wheeler Elvira A. Holes), Margaret A. Cook, Athalia Robinson, Sarah Granger Kimball, Eliza R. Snow, Sophia Robinson, Nancy Rigdon, and Sophia R. Marks. The women present were proposed as early members and the men resigned as a movement to accept all those present were considered. The movement passed and the men returned. Then 7 other names were proposed by Joseph Smith to be accepted. They are: Sarah Higbee, Thirza Cahoon, Keziah A. Morrison, Marinda N. Hyde, Abigail Allred, Mary Snider, and Sarah S. Granger. The men resigned as the women considered and passed the motion. Smith then proposed that the public elect a chief officer and allow the officer to select two counselors to assist him. They will be ordained and will lead the community. In place of a Constitution, the Presidency will lead and all their decisions must be considered law and followed up as such. At the appropriate time, the public body should vote and the majority opinion of the sisters will be respected as law. The minutes of the meeting will serve as an additional guide to their government. Whitney motioned and advocated that Emma Smith was elected President and this was unanimously endorsed. Emma Smith then selected two counselors, Cleveland and Whitney. At that time Taylor, who chaired the meeting, emptied the honor to Smith and his counselors. The men retreated when Smith chose a secretary and treasurer. Three members of the Presidency were later ordained and blessed by Taylor.
Smith states "the object of the Society - that the Society of Sisters may provoke men to do good work in searching for the wishes of the poor - seeking the objects of charity, and in arranging their desires - to help, repair the morals and strengthen the virtues of the women community, and to save the Elders of reproach, that they can give their time to another task, & amp; c., in their public teaching. "
It is proposed that the organization go by the name of "Benevolent Society" and without the sound of the opposition being carried. However, Emma Smith made an objection. He assured the participants that the term "help" would better reflect the organization's purpose, as they "will do something extraordinary," different from the popular virtues institutions of the day. After the discussion, it was unanimously agreed that the newborn organization was named "Nauvoo Women's Aid Institute". Joseph Smith then offered five dollars (worth $ 127 today) with gold to start funding from the Institute. After people left the room, Eliza R. Snow was unanimously elected Secretary of the Society with Phebe M. Wheeler as Assistant Secretary and Elvira A. Coles as Treasurer. Emma Smith states that "every member should be ambitious to do good" and seek and release the suffering. Some female members then donate to the Society. People returned, and Taylor and Richards also made a donation. After singing "Let's Let Us Rejoice," the meeting was postponed to meet next Thursday at 10 am. Taylor then gave a closing prayer. From his experience Joseph Smith notes: "I am present at the request of the Women's Relief Society, whose object is the assistance of the poor, the poor, the widows and the orphans, and to carry out all the purposes of virtue... [W]" They are convinced that by those who are concentrated, the conditions of the poor who suffer, the foreigners and the orphans will be repaired ".
The new organization was popular and growing so fast that finding a meeting place for such a large group proved difficult. Under the direction of Emma Smith, the Society "is divided for the purpose of meeting" according to each of the four city wards. Smith and his counselors continue to lead the groups. The visit committee is appointed to determine the needs in each environment. The young mother of Sarah Pea Rich, wife of Charles C. Rich, remembers, "We were then, as people united and more like family than strangers." In March 1844, membership amounted to 1331 women.
The last Relief Society meeting recorded in Nauvoo was held on March 16, 1844. Smith often used Relief Society as a platform to express his opposition to plural marriage. However, some members and community leaders are secretly in plural marriages, including to Smith's own husband, who himself advises the public to expose the crime. This inner conflict caused Joseph Smith to suspend all organizational meetings. After the death of Joseph Smith in June 1844, Brigham Young held the majority leadership of the Latter-day Saints. Wanting to continue the plural marriage, Young dissolved the Relief Society before leaving Nauvoo to the Salt Lake Valley.
Move west
When the Relief Society secretary, Eliza R. Snow, joined the Latter-day Saints in their exodus in the west in 1846, she brought the Relief Society Relief Society together. Although they no longer meet in official capacity, women continue to gather informally; care and care of people in need continue without the official Relief Society organization.
When the Saints set up houses in the Salt Lake Valley and surrounding neighborhoods, formal meetings for women gradually emerged. The Women's Health Council was established in 1851. On January 24, 1854, in response to Brigham Young's appeal to the Saints to help Native American Neighbors, women from several neighborhoods of Salt Lake City decided to organize "a women's society for the purpose of making clothing for Indian women and children. "Two weeks later, on February 9, 1854, they officially organized an association known as the" Indian Relief Society. " Matilda Dudley was elected president and treasurer, Mary Hawkins and Mary Bird as advisers, Louisa R. Taylor as secretary, and Amanda Barnes Smith as assistant secretary. Twelve other women are registered as charter members. Although Mormon women are poor in material things, they feel the needs of Native Americans exceed their own. Over the next four months, their efforts to wear Indian women and children's clothing continued. In June 1854, Brigham Young encouraged women to form communities in their respective neighborhoods. Members of the first Indian Relief Society were disbanded to help found an organization in their own neighborhood, many of whom became leaders. Matilda Dudley, for example, became president of the 13th Environment Relief Society with Augusta Cobb and Sarah A. Cook as her advisers and Martha Jane Coray as secretary. Records are limited but show that in 1858 more than two dozen organizations have formed in about twelve neighborhoods of Salt Lake City and in other remote settlements such as Ogden, Provo, Spanish Fork, and Manti, Utah. Each Relief Society operates independently within its environment in cooperation with the local bishop. Environmentalists are not linked to the central women's leadership, although many of them engage in similar activities such as sewing clothes for Indians, caring for the poor, especially emigrants, and weaving carpets for local meeting venues.
In 2004, historian Carol Holindrake Nielson documented the organization, activities and membership of the 14th Salt Creek City Wave Relief Society. The Fourteenth Ward includes Temple Square and eleven residential squares in the south and west. This section contains the home of many church leaders. Among others, the Relief Society rolls include the names of Leonora Taylor and Jane B. Taylor, the wives of John Taylor; Elizabeth B. Pratt, Kezia D. Pratt and Phoebe Soper Pratt, wife of Parley P. Pratt; and Phebe W. Woodruff, Emma Woodruff, Sarah Woodruff, Sarah Delight Woodruff, Phebe A. Woodruff, Susan C. Woodruff, Buluh Woodruff, wife and daughter of Wilford Woodruff.
Disturbed by the Utah War of 1858, no more than three or four independent environmental organizations survived the temporary displacement of most Mormons in southern Salt Lake County.
Expansion
In December 1867, Brigham Young Church president openly called for the reorganization of the Relief Society in each ward. Eliza R. Snow gives a historical account of the community and explains its purpose to seek "not only for the relief of the poor, but the achievement of every good and noble work." Young again discussed the need to set up a local Relief Society unit at the April 1868 general conference, stating: Now, Bishop, you have a smart woman for your wife, many of you. Let them organize Women's Relief Society in various environments. We have many talented women among us.... You will find that the sisters will be the main drivers of this movement. Snow is tasked to assist the local bishop in organizing the Relief Society's permanent branches. Using notes noted during the initial Nauvoo meeting as a Constitution, Snow set a standard model for all the local wards that unite women deliberately and assign permanent names and structures to his organization. He and nine other sisters began visiting neighborhoods and settlements in 1868, and by the end of the year, the organization was in all twenty Salt Lake City congregations and in trials in almost every area of ​​Utah.
The Relief Society environment unit performs various functions. Women help bishops in the neighborhood help the poor by collecting and channeling funds and commodities. They care for hospitals, cleaning houses, sewing rugs for local meeting houses, planting and caring for gardens, promoting home industries, and sharing doctrinal teachings and testimonies.
Snow provided central leadership both before and after his call as General President in 1880. He emphasized spirituality and self-reliance. Relief Society sends women to medical schools, trained nurses, opens Deseret Hospital, operates cooperative stores, promotes silk making, storing grain, and making barns. In 1872, Snow provided help and advice to Louisa L. Greene in the creation of a women's publication, Woman's Exponent , loosely affiliated with Relief Society. Emmeline B. Wells replaced Greene and continued as an editor until his final edition in 1914.
Under the direction of Snow, Relief Society sisters looked after women and young people. Heeding the 1869 Brigham Young warning for reform, Snow, Mary Isabella Horne, and others founded the Women's Cooperative Retrenchment Association in which the Ladies Ladies Cooperative Youth Department was formed (later called the Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association and now Young Women). Snow also worked with Aurelia Spencer Rogers to establish the first Environmental Primary Association in 1878. In 1888, the Relief Society had more than 22,000 members in 400 neighborhoods and local branches. In 1891, the Relief Society became a member of the Charter of the National Women's Council of the United States and called the National Women's Aid Institute.
Early Relief Society meetings are generally held every half month. One meeting per month is dedicated to sewing and caring for the needs of the poor. At meetings, members can receive instructions, discuss lifts and educational topics, and testify. Women are also encouraged to explore and develop cultural opportunities for their communities. Stakes began to circulate for lessons in 1902. The first standard lesson was published by the General Council in 1914 in the Relief Society , then renamed the Relief Society Relief in 1915.
Relief Society in the 20th Century
By 1942, membership in the organization was about 115,000 women, growing to 300,000 members in 1966.
In June 1945, the General Council changed the official name of the organization to "The Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". Implementation of the Priesthood Corrections throughout the church in the 1960s "radically changed" the Relief Society. These changes help in preparing Relief Society for the era of churches around the world. The relevant lessons and materials are easier to translate and apply to a wider audience. A side effect of this change is that the Relief Society has lost some of the autonomy it once enjoyed. The Relief Society Magazine "last edition was December 1970, after which and several other church magazines were replaced by Ensign .
Relief Society in the 21st century
In the LDS Church today, every Latter-day Saint woman on her 18th birthday, or in the coming year, and a married woman under 18, progresses to the Young Women Relief Society. In addition, unmarried teenage mothers aged 17 years or older and who choose to keep the child go to the Relief Society. There is no fee or membership fee to join the Relief Society.
In every local congregation, a member of the Relief Society serves as President of a local organization. The President is permitted to ask two other women from the council to assist him as a counselor; together the three women formed the Presidency of the Local Relief Society. The Relief Society presidency acts under the direction of the bishop or branch president in leading and serving women in the congregation. In addition, the Relief Society or district presidency exists to oversee five or more local Relief Society Presidencies.
Relief Society holds weekly weekly meetings that last approximately fifty minutes. During these meetings, an education lesson is presented by a member of the Relief Society Presidency or another woman who has been asked to serve as a Relief Society instructor. Since the 1990s, the curriculum consists of Teachings of Presidents of the Church and other materials. The Relief Society also leads the efforts of the LDS Church to teach basic literacy skills to members and non-members who lack them.
Three women were called to serve as the Presidency of the Public Relief Society throughout the LDS Church. Although these women are not considered public authorities, they are based in Salt Lake City and are considered "church officers" and among the highest ranked women in the LDS Church hierarchy. Since April 2017, the Presidency of the Public Relief Society consists of Jean B. Bingham, President; Sharon Eubank, First Adviser; and Reyna I. Aburto, Second Counselor. They are assisted and advised by the General Council of Relief Society taken from women in the church.
From 1970 to 2013, the Relief Society held a public meeting in Salt Lake City, annually at the end of September, which is broadcast worldwide via television, radio, satellite and the Internet. This meeting is an opportunity for the Presidency of the Public Relief Society to discuss the whole body of the Relief Society. Usually a member of the First Presidency of the church also speaks to women in the church.
In 2014, such meetings (together with the Young Women Meeting in March) were replaced by a bi-annual women's meeting held in March and September, one week before another general conference session. The meeting was for all women in churches aged eight and up. The first meeting was held in March 2014 and the Primary general president, Young Women, and the Relief Society General Presidency spoke together with Henry B. Eyring from the First Presidency.
In 2009, Relief Society has approximately 6 million members in more than 170 countries and territories.
Community Aid Institute
In Salt Lake City, the Relief Society occupies its own headquarters building known as the Relief Relief Society , which is separate from the other LDS Church administration offices. While the Quorum of the Seventy had a building in Nauvoo in the 1840s, Relief Society is the only complementary organization in the current LDS Church that has completely separate facilities. The building is also the closest of any building to the door of the Salt Lake Temple.
Program
Ministering sister
At each LDS session, each member of the Relief Society is paired with another member; this fellowship is then commissioned by the Relief Society Presidency to serve the sisters of one or more members of another Relief Society. The serving sister tried to make regular contact with the women assigned to them. Sometimes this contact is a private visit at a member's home. If this is not possible, members may be contacted by phone, mail, e-mail, or visits at locations other than members' homes. Visiting teachers are encouraged to seek opportunities to serve the people they serve.
On April 1, 2018, during the 188th Annual Session of the 188rd Annual General Conference, President Russell M. Nelson announced that a similar visiting teaching program, together with priesthood teaching, would be retired, replaced with a "service" program of brothers, with its two components under the direction of the environmental elders quorum and the Relief Society leadership.
Compassionate service
Together with the bishop or branch president, Relief Society President is the key person in the ward to ensure that the temporal and emotional needs of members of the hearing are fulfilled. The Relief Society presidency is responsible for helping women of congregation learn welfare principles such as employment, self-reliance, frugal living, personal and family preparedness, and loving service from others. In many congregations, the Relief Society will require a woman to serve as a Compassionate Service Leader, responsible for organizing service activities and responses to the needs of members in times of emergency or difficulty.
Extra meeting
Additional Relief Society meetings are usually held every three weeks once a week in every church hearing. At this meeting, women learn various skills, with special emphasis on parenting and housekeeping skills. Local congregations may also choose to hold monthly or weekly meetings for women with similar needs and interests. These extra meetings are less formal than weekly weekly meetings and local congregations have extensive discretion in deciding what activities will be part of these extra meetings. These meetings were originally called "Housekeeping", and on January 1, 2000, the name was changed to "Home, Family, and Personal Enrichment", or "Enrichment" for the short term. In September 2009, due to the different name and interpretation complexity of the meeting objectives, separate names for additional workday meetings have been terminated and all Relief Society meetings have been referred to only as "Relief Society Meetings".
Recognition
In April 2005, the Relief Society received the American Red Cross "Hero Award 2004" for its services in the Greater Salt Lake region.
In 2010, Catholic Community Services rewarded Julie Beck, the Relief Society general president, where she was named Community Partners.
See also
- LDS Family Services
- Mormon feminism
- The worship service of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
References
Additional readings
Derr, Jill Mulvay, Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, and Janath Cannon, Women of the Covenant: The Story of Relief Society . Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book, 1992.
External links
- Official website
- Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book on the Joseph Smith Papers website
- Relief Society Public Relief Society, Relief Society, Church Service, LDS Church - a list of available biographies of each President of the LDS Relief Society General Society
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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