I hope you're all having an enjoyable long weekend. Here's what is going on this week and in June.
Dates to Remember:
May 30: Temple outing with Relief Society Presidency. If you'd like to attend the 10 a.m. session on this day, call the temple for an appointment (949-644-1820). If you'd like to carpool call Shannon Lo (949-309-8241).
June 1: Ward temple night 6:30 p.m. Call early to save your spot!
Park Day:
Kids making you crazy? Need to get out of the house? Remember park day each Thursday at 12:00 p.m. at Altisima park. Even if you don't have kids, come by and enjoy chatting with lots of women from our ward and the Mission Lake ward.
Book of Mormon Challenge:
Our annual summer Book of Mormon reading will start soon, so get ready! This is a great opportunity to encourage your children to read the entire book when they don't have homework or other school activities to distract them. It's also a great time to read it yourself! Reading it in a short amount of time gives you a whole new perspective on scriptures that may already be familiar.
Monthly Demo Class:
We will be offering demos monthly that can help strengthen our families and homes. Here is the schedule for the next few months. The times and dates change depending on the teacher, so take note of when demos are offered.
June - Making wheat bread with Eileen
Stidham - time and date TBD
If you have a skill you would like to learn or a skill you would be willing to offer, please contact Katie Anderson or Geralene Beckett and we will get it on the schedule for the second half of the year.
Visiting
Teaching:
You still have a few more days to do your visiting teaching for May.The May issue of the Ensign is the conference
report, so please choose a message from conference to share with the sisters you
visit. You can find all of the talks here.
Missionary News:
If you would like to feed the missionaries, please contact
Lauri Rex at laurirex@yahoo.com or 589-2929.
Don't forget to keep not only the elders serving in our ward in your prayers, but also the elders serving from our ward. Patrick Carlile is in the Berlin, Germany mission and Landon Gold is serving in Durban, South Africa.
Don't forget to keep not only the elders serving in our ward in your prayers, but also the elders serving from our ward. Patrick Carlile is in the Berlin, Germany mission and Landon Gold is serving in Durban, South Africa.
Lesson Schedule:
June 3: Presidency message
June 10: George A. Smith Ch. 11 Revelation from God to His Children
June 17: George A. Smith ch. 12 An Enthusiastic Desire to Share the Gospel
June 24: TFOT: And a Little Child Shall Lead Them
Sister Griffith taught us today from one of my favorite talks from our April General Conference. Elder Holland spoke on the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard and his insights into the meaning of this parable are very profound. Sister Griffith touched on the following three points Elder Holland makes in his talk:
1. Be kind. Be kind to each other and not envious of the blessings of those around us. Elder Holland explained this parable as such,
It is with that reading of the story that I feel the grumbling of the first laborers must be seen. As the householder in the parable tells them (and I paraphrase only slightly): “My friends, I am not being unfair to you. You agreed on the wage for the day, a good wage. You were very happy to get the work, and I am very happy with the way you served. You are paid in full. Take your pay and enjoy the blessing. As for the others, surely I am free to do what I like with my own money.” Then this piercing question to anyone then or now who needs to hear it: “Why should you be jealous because I choose to be kind?”
He goes on to say: Brothers and sisters, there are going to be times in our lives when someone else gets an unexpected blessing or receives some special recognition. May I plead with us not to be hurt—and certainly not to feel envious—when good fortune comes to another person? We are not diminished when someone else is added upon. We are not in a race against each other to see who is the wealthiest or the most talented or the most beautiful or even the most blessed. The race we are really in is the race against sin, and surely envy is one of the most universal of those.
2. Let it go. Why would we give up our blessings out of anger that someone else had received the same, but at the last hour. Don't dwell on grievances. We only have two options: let it go or don't. Elder Holland puts it this way: We consume such precious emotional and spiritual capital clinging tenaciously to the memory of a discordant note we struck in a childhood piano recital, or something a spouse said or did 20 years ago that we are determined to hold over his or her head for another 20, or an incident in Church history that proved no more or less than that mortals will always struggle to measure up to the immortal hopes placed before them. Even if one of those grievances did not originate with you, it can end with you. And what a reward there will be for that contribution when the Lord of the vineyard looks you in the eye and accounts are settled at the end of our earthly day.
3. Believe in Atonement. We can't rely on Christ as just a cheerleader. He is our Savior and will save us. We can't do it by ourselves.
Elder Holland says the following: This parable—like all parables—is not really about laborers or wages any more than the others are about sheep and goats. This is a story about God’s goodness, His patience and forgiveness, and the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a story about generosity and compassion. It is a story about grace. It underscores the thought I heard many years ago that surely the thing God enjoys most about being God is the thrill of being merciful, especially to those who don’t expect it and often feel they don’t deserve it.
Sister Griffith concluded by sharing a talk, Believing Christ by Elder Stephen Robinson that includes the now familiar Parable of the Bicycle. Elder Robinson's daughter wanted a bicycle so he told her to save her pennies. She worked hard doing extra chores and putting all of her money in a piggy bank. At the end of a few weeks she came to him with all she had asking if it was enough. When he saw she had less than a dollar after all of her hard work, he knew she could not do it on her own. He took her to the bike store and when she saw the price tag on the bike she really wanted, she knew she'd never be able to earn enough. At this point her father said to her, "give me what you have and I'll chip in the rest."
This story is very much like the Atonement does in our lives. No matter how much work we put in, we cannot be saved without our Saviour's help.
Thank you for a beautiful lesson Shelly!
Have a great
week!
Brittany Larsen
Presidency members:
Geralene Beckett - Presidentbeckettbunch@cox.net
Diane Smith - 1st Counselordianebsmith.smith5@gmail.com
Katie Anderson - 2nd Counselorkatiewoodanderson@gmail.com
Shannon Lo - Secretaryfoxymomsml@cox.net
No comments:
Post a Comment