Birthday Party!!

It seems most things I do revolve around my church calling. I am grateful to be able to serve and I guess it's all things Relief Society for now! I served as a ward president for 4 years, a counselor in the stake Relief Society for a year and half and have been serving as a stake Relief Society president for 3 years.

Every year we have a stake Enrichment Conference. This year we had a birthday party to celebrate the 167th anniversary of the organization of the Relief Society.

We used quilts to decorate the room. We compared the quilts to Relief Society - each piece is different, some are light, some are dark, and some have different shapes but they all fit together to become a beautiful quilt. Such is Relief Society, we are all different - different talents, different interests, different backgrounds but we make a beautiful, loving group when we put it all together.

This was the first quilt I ever made. I stayed with Grandma Federer one summer and she taught me how to quilt. We cut each piece with a template and I sewed them together with needle and thread - no sewing machine. Many years later a group of ladies in Ogden hand quilted it for me.

This beautiful painting by Walter Rane depicts the first Relief Society meeting held in Nauvoo, Illinois. On Thursday afternoon, March 17, 1842, the Prophet Joseph Smith, in company with John Taylor and Willard Richards, formally organized the woman into a society. What started with 20 women has now grown to about 6 million members.

My counselors Val Peterson, Valerie Blain and my secretary Ann Adamson always give their all to help prepare for any meeting we have.

Val and Ann created this beautiful display.

Grandma Federer made this quilt for for my high school graduation (1976). She made all of her grandchildren a quilt or two! My Mom made many of my dresses and she saved the scraps. She gave them to Grandma who turned them into a beautiful "Flower Garden" quilt. It is one of my most precious possession.

This display had to be moved because we had to make room to set up about 6 more tables to accommodate a much bigger crowd than we expected. The Stake Center, which is larger was not available (and this was the only time our guest speaker could come), so needless to say it got a little cozy in this building!! We never know how many sisters will attend so we just use the average from previous years but yikes this caught us by surprise. A quick run to Kohler's to grab a few more rolls and things and we managed to serve everyone. It's that loaves and fishes principle!!

Dear friends who stayed to help clean up ... Valerie, Susan, Christina, Whitney (just home from a mission to Japan), Val and Ann.

A group of sisters sang the song that was our theme:

Make Us One...

Make us one that our burdens may be light.
Make us one as we seek eternal life.
Unite our hands to serve thy children well.
Unite us in obedience to thy will.
Make us one ...
Teach us Lord, to be of one faith,
of one heart, one in thee.

Our guest speaker was Anne Pingree. She is a former member of the general Relief Society presidency. She gave a wonderful message and reminded us of the blessings of belonging to Relief Society. She also shared pictures of sisters from her travels around the world. She told inspirational stories from their lives. It was a wonderful evening - a success by all accounts!! Now what will I do with my extra time!!