Learning How to be a Relief Society President

"We keep the Sabbath at home," the older woman told me defensively, "reading the scriptures and worshiping in our own way."

"Oh," I said, not quite sure how I was supposed to respond.  I hadn't asked her why she and her husband didn't come to church, I had just dropped by with a pan of cinnamon rolls, wanting to introduce myself and find out who this couple was and get to know them a little better.  I had seen their names on our church rolls ever since I was made Relief Society President, but I knew nothing about them.

"Maybe some day when you get a new Bishop we'll start coming to church again," the woman continued.  "But until then we'll stay home on Sundays."

"Oh," I said again.  Should I ask her why she didn't like the Bishop, or would she think I was prying or gossiping or butting into her personal business?  I wasn't very good at this visiting thing, yet.

"We used to go every week," the woman proclaimed, "but nobody was ever nice to us.  Do you know, a couple of years ago when our son was in the hospital no one even came to visit us?  Not even the Bishop! The people in this ward think they are better than everyone else.  They go around proclaiming to be Christians, but they don't act like it."

I stayed a little longer, trying to be understanding and nice, but I could tell my bringing cinnamon rolls was not going to make up for the years of imagined neglect.  I was sorry they felt excluded, but I suspected that underneath the excuses they really just didn't want to be bothered with the work of being active in the church.  Still, I could relate to them feeling bad when nobody visited them in the hospital.  I'd actually felt the same way when Stephen was there.

We really weren't there very long, only four days, and probably nobody knew we were there until the danger was passed and Stephen was about to be released.  I also understood that people were busy and the hospital was a long way away, but I had hoped someone would come and see how we were doing.  Going through that experience had certainly helped me understand how people felt when they were stuck at the hospital, scared, sick, and anxious, and how helpful a friendly face and a concerned visitor could be. 

It seemed to me that the Lord was working hard, trying to train me how to be a better friend, councilor, and Relief Society President. 

A few weeks later we met at the Stake Relief Society President's house for another training meeting.  We were still focusing on learning how to help our sisters deal with grief and depression, but she also talked to us about our Sunday lessons. 

"You need to encourage your teachers to stick with the material in the manual," she told us.  "We've been hearing about teachers who are bringing in lots of extra resources, like movie clips and books they have read, stuff that is interesting but not from the approved curriculum.  The policy is to teach from the manual, and if they want to add anything else it needs to be from the scriptures or the words of the Prophets."

We had a teacher in our ward who did exactly what our Stake Relief Society President was talking about.  Her lessons were lots of fun and very interesting, but she did use all kinds of outside resources to get her point across.  I wondered if it really mattered?  The sisters loved her lessons.  Still, I made a note to talk to my Education Councilor so she could teach this sister to stick closer to the manual.

This particular sister happened to be teaching the following Sunday.  Before the lesson my councilor whispered to me that she hadn't had a chance to talk to her yet. 

"Don't worry," I told her quietly.  "It will probably by fine this week.  Just talk to her before her lesson next month."

"Our lesson this week is on chastity," the teacher began a few minutes later.  "We've had this lesson a million times, so I thought we'd shake it up a bit and do something different.  We're going to do divide the class up into two groups.  One will be for chastity, the other against, and lets see what we can learn."

The sisters twittered together, enjoying this new approach to teaching an often embarrassing, uncomfortable subject.  There was much more participation than usual, and everyone seemed to enjoy the lesson, except for one sister, sitting alone in the back of the room.  I was sitting on a chair in the front, facing the class, so I could see this sister's face as she went from  uninterested to uncomfortable to distressed, finally standing up and walking out of the room.  I slipped out of my seat and followed her, catching her as she ducked into the restroom, tears streaming down her face.  What I knew, but no one else including the teacher, was that just the night before this sister had met with the Stake President, the High Council, and our Bishop, because she had been involved in adultery.  What courage she had shown to come to her meetings that day, and what determination to make up for her mistakes and right the wrong she had done to her husband and family.  And now, because of a thoughtless, light hearted approach to teaching a very sensitive subject, this poor sister's heart had been broken all over again. 

Now I understood the wisdom and principle behind asking our teachers to stick with the approved lessons.  If only I had made sure the teacher was trained before today. I sure had a long way to go learning how to be a Relief Society President.