General Relief Society Broadcast

Last night I had the opportunity to attend General Relief Society Meeting Broadcast at my local stake center. I am sure many of you reading this did the same. I enjoyed the Relief Society presidency's addresses, Sister Allred's really spoke to me simply because of how recently I attended the temple for the first time.



But beyond that, I wanted to mention here how much I appreciated the words of Elder Uchtdorf. The concepts and ideas he taught were inspiring. His words about our innate desire to create and be creative simply because we are children of a Heavenly Father who is, by His nature, a creator--our creator--touched me deeply. This isn't something we generally hear about from our leaders in this exact way, to hear that we are to beautify the world around us, to take disorder and chaos and form it into something that did not exist before, is, while not an entirely new concept, certainly put into a new perspective. We are to create (and that doesn't simply mean in artistic endeavors) because our Father is creative.

He then spoke about the need for greater service. We've heard this time and time again, I know, but I love that he mentioned that offering more service in order to relieve the tension and trials of life may seem counterintuitive. Indeed, it is just oppposite of what the rest of the world says. How often have we heard, "Your children cannot be happy if their mother is not happy." And, "If it makes YOU happy, then by all means, do it." This self-centered line of thought is, ultimately, destructive. However, by offering more service, by sacrificing more of ourselves, we come to fill more at peace. This is true. I've seen it in my own life, in my line of work. On days when I am exhausted and my students annoy me and I just want a moment of quiet and everything seems to be going wrong, it always seems that an opportunity to be of help to one student presents itself. Usually this student will come to me at the exact moment that I feel I can finally sit and relax and take a breath. And when they come in, I'll be honest, I cringe a little. But when I throw myself into helping them with whatever is going on, giving them that one-on-one attention that they need, I feel re-energized. I feel good. I feel like I was of value.

If you missed the opportunity to watch it, go here. It was edifying. It was good. Amen.