During Julie B. Beck’s five years as General Relief Society President she has spoken often of the importance of the Relief Society in all women’s lives. I’m so grateful for her many talks on the importance and joy of being a woman of God, a mother and a member of the Relief Society in these latter days.

In her final address to us in April 2012 Sister Beck focused on three principles, Faith, Family and Relief. “These three simple words have come to express the vision of prophets for sisters in the Church.”

Faith

How has your membership in the Relief Society expanded your faith? I know that going to my Sunday meeting alone increases my faith. I’m so grateful for sincere, well-prepared lessons that lead me to ponder and find greater personal meaning of gospel principles.

I’m grateful for faithful examples of women around me that I’ve met through Relief Society. Some years ago I visit taught a sister who was about ten years older than me. I was a young mother with two small children. She was a single sister with multiple health problems who had endured countless hospital stays and surgeries. I had gotten married young; she had gotten a college degree and served a mission in Hawaii. We often compared our lives, jokingly coveting one another’s accomplishments. At the end of every exchange with this sister I was left uplifted and amazed at her continuous positivity and joy. She openly and readily shared her testimony each time we spoke. She was an example of pure faith. She had a vision of herself as a daughter of God.

I’m also grateful for our wonderful Relief Society Presidents and their incredible faith and service on our behalf. Sister Beck shared, “Relief Society presidents who get on their knees and ask Heavenly Father to tell them what they need to learn will have revelation pouring down to them in beauty and detail. One Relief Society president says, “The Lord knows the hearts and minds of each of our sisters. He knows their struggles and heartaches, their joys and their sorrows. And only He truly knows what will best help them. Thus, our solution is to ask in faith for direction.”

Family

Does the Relief Society have an impact on our families? Sometimes homemaking skills, Family Home Evening Kits and other crafts can have a great impact on our families. But does the Relief Society do more?

In Sister Beck’s talk, “Mothers Who Know”, she says, “[Our prophet] has asked us to “begin in [our] own homes”7 to teach children the ways of truth. Latter-day Saint women should be the very best in the world at upholding, nurturing, and protecting families. I have every confidence that our women will do this and will come to be known as mothers who “knew” (Alma 56:48).

She encourages all women that as we increase in spiritual strength, knowing our own potential as daughters of God, this will in turn strengthen and increase our abilities as mothers who nurture, teach, serve and yes, even do dishes.

I know for myself, that when my spirit is well cared for, I am able to find greater peace and satisfaction in even the most mundane of daily chores. As I increase my faith, my family and my home are in turn blessed.

Relief

This word is the title of our very organization, what does it mean? In Mosiah 18:8-9 when Alma is teaching and baptizing at the waters of Mormon, he says that, “as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light. Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life—”

As women, it is natural for us to reach out to those in pain, to help and comfort where we can. My own lack in this isn’t my willingness to do this for others, but my ability to expand my circle enough to see and recognize when others need my help.

Visiting Teaching is the program set up for us to have “assigned circles”. Recently I have been inspired to pray more earnestly for those I visit teach so that I may be more in tune with their personal needs.

Sister Beck says this about providing relief of a spiritual nature to the sisters around us,

“President Spencer W. Kimball said: “There are many sisters who are living in rags—spiritual rags. They are entitled to gorgeous robes, spiritual robes. … It is your privilege to go into homes and exchange robes for rags.”

I love the visual of spiritual robes. I’ve had moments of being in spiritual rags, I believe we all have. What greater gift is there to another soul that to help heal and lift. What greater joy will we have in the eternities seeing these friends and sisters arrayed in eternal robes? I want to be a part of that.

Sister Beck closes her final address with these words:

“As sisters become more aligned with the purposes of Relief Society, the vision of the prophets will be fulfilled. President Kimball said, “There is a power in this organization [of Relief Society] that has not yet been fully exercised to strengthen the homes of Zion and build the Kingdom of God—nor will it until both the sisters and the priesthood catch the vision of Relief Society. Much of the major growth that is coming to the Church in the last days will come because many of the good women of the world (in whom there is often … an inner sense of spirituality) will be drawn to the Church in large numbers. This will happen to the degree that the women of the Church … are seen as distinct and different—in happy ways—from the women of the world.”

It is a privilege to be a member of the Relief Society today. To be counted among the “good women” of these latter days and to see the Relief Society reach its full potential. This takes my faith, my time and my acts of service. As we join together as sisters to love, lift and serve. To strengthen Faith, Family and provide Relief we will witness the fullness of what the Relief Society is about and the power we have to prepare this world for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.