Mormon Bloggers

It’s the 171th anniversary of the organization of the Relief Society, the women’s organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We’ve had a lot of posts at Mormon Women about the Relief Society over the years. Today we repost a list that features many of them. Information on the Mormon History of Relief Society History of the Relief Society (video) Daughters in My Kingdom  Lessons from a leftover pizza: A visiting teaching miracle “Daughters in My Kingdom” – New Relief Society book for LDS Women Why I Love Relief Society First Person: Love in a Cookie The History and Purpose of the Mormon Relief Society Mormon Men’s Thoughts on Relief Society Small and Simple Things — Visiting Teaching Service in Day-to-Day Life Mormon Women: At the crossroads of life through visiting teaching Mormon Women in a Nutshell: The Relief Society Declaration We also know that many people have questions about Mormon women and how they are viewed in The Church of... Read the rest of this entry »

Today marks the 171th anniversary of the creation of the Relief Society in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormon women have created videos to celebrate the purposes and mission of Relief Society. We’ve shared a few below. Why Relief Society? Aniversario de la Sociedad de Socorro Relief Society Visiting teaching is…. My Sister’s Hands  Read More →

Violence against women is not a new topic of discussion by any means. It is an everyday reality of life, and therefore is a topic of discussion that demands some sort of resolution. On Wednesday, 6 March 2013, during a United Nations side event featuring the humanitarian outreach of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (mistakenly referred to as the Mormon Church by people of other faiths) to women worldwide, the executive director of LDS Charities, Sharon Eubank, stated, “Violence against women isn’t just physical, it can be structural.” She further commented: If women don’t have access to health care because the roads are too dangerous, if they are turned away from care because they are too poor or too disabled, if there is no equipment to save their newborn, if no one believes girls need wheelchairs — they are bullied by a societal structure that is so much bigger and meaner than they have power to fight. [1] During the past... Read the rest of this entry »

Sharon Eubank, director of Humanitarian Services for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, recently led a discussion with international leaders concerned about improving the lives of women worldwide. The Church hosted an event as part of the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women. Speakers at this event in addition to Sharon Eubank included Charles T. Ntwaagae (Botswana’s ambassador to the United Nations); Anna Thompson-Quaye (deputy director of the GAVI Alliance, a Geneva-based agency that provides vaccines to children in poor countries), and Dennis C. and Nancy C. Hughes (LDS humanitarian medical trainers). An example of the kind of service the Church provides that significantly impacts women and children came in response a request from the government of Jordan to help Syrian refugees who had fled to the country. 80% of those refugees were women and children. The Church donated two million dollars worth of humanitarian aid and supplies to help those... Read the rest of this entry »

Al Fox, convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, shares some of her thoughts and testimony about the blessing and power of covenants, the temple, and the joy of living the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Read More →

I teach a class at our local Mormon church called Gospel Principles.  It is a course designed for people who are not familiar with the Mormon faith who are wanting to learn more, or for those who need a “refresher” course.  This week’s lesson is on the Priesthood. According to the lesson manual, the definition of priesthood is: the eternal power and authority of God.  The lesson continues by sharing that God has a certain order and delegates this power and authority for people to act in his name.  It also goes on to share the in God’s church only those who have been ordained to the priesthood by the laying on of hands can lead God’s church. As I read through the lesson, I became distracted by a certain phrase that kept popping up in various ways.  I’ll highlight some of them: Our Heavenly Father delegates His priesthood power to worthy male members of the Church. If a man does not have the priesthood, even though he may be sincere, the Lord will... Read the rest of this entry »

Sorry to my blog visitors today.  This is the last one…I promise. In response to Joanna’s article today: “No Joanna, thousands did not wear pants. The more you try and puff this up to something it wasn’t, the sillier the attention-getting looks. About 600 said they would wear pants or purple, not all of them did and in a Church which boasts millions, this isn’t even a drop. Furthermore, most LDS wards (congregations) are reporting not even a single sister wore pants, not even in the Single Young Adult wards. This was mostly un-respectable hype, perhaps influenced by the lull of fame from martyrdom – by someone clinging to the thrill of a women’s lib era gone by. In no way do you boast the respect and the depth of the woman’s suffrage movement. Loved what they said at the “Daily Herald.” “We have a suggestion for All Enlisted: Get a life. If you want to be respected, do things that are worthy of respect — especially... Read the rest of this entry »

Women suffrage movement – totally cool!  Today’s feminist movement which attacks & cannibalizes some of their own current peers over their lifestyle choices – fail. (a la Hilary Rosen vs. Ann Romney). Joanna Brooks – a self-proclaimed Mormon feminist – has successfully painted herself to the liberal media as the “go to” girl for all things Mormon. Joanna boasts about several thousand active LDS women agreeing with her feminist views.  Which sounds like a real movement of people – that is until you look at the numbers.  Since the LDS church numbers about 14 million members and just assuming about half are women – “several thousand” is a drop in the bucket.  Thats roughly about 4/10 of 1%.  Whatever the exact numbers are – it’s minuscule. What’s amazing is how much she gets away with passing off her own dissident issues and disgruntlements as anything significant or... Read the rest of this entry »

Dr. Wendy Ulrich (parent, psychologist, business consultant, writer, and educator) talks about how a difficult day helped her learn more about the Lord’s personal love for her — for each of us. It relates to something she shared in her profile on Mormon Scholars Testify: “Like many people who have longed for a close and loving relationship with God and more regular access to spiritual impressions and direction, I used to wonder why God seemed so distant when I wanted so much to be close to Him. In recent years I have increasingly realized that I have been the one who has kept Him far away, not so much by my disobedience as by my restlessness, my distractibility, my impatience, my blindness, and, especially, my fear. Intimacy is hard enough to tolerate in human relationships, where closeness reminds us of just how vulnerable we are, how often we have been disappointed and hurt, how much we have to lose. God, for me at least, has been even harder to let in than people.... Read the rest of this entry »

This article is inspired by an experience I had at my new Ward (congregation) at church a few weeks ago. In preparing for General Conference, the Bishop (Pastor) of the ward was giving a lesson to the adults in the congregation.  He was asking certain questions and getting feedback from the members.  I can’t remember the exact question he asked, but it was something along the lines of “What is a prophet?”  Some one answered and he replied that the answer was wrong and emphasized that ONLY men are called to be prophets and women do not get that calling. The way he said it made me cringe as I thought about all the ladies in the room and as my thoughts turned to the public perception that I’ve heard many times that the Mormon Church is male shovanistic.  I came very close to raising my hand and correcting him, but I decided it wasn’t the right time and place to do that.  So, I’m doing it here. In this article, I will first define what a prophet is,... Read the rest of this entry »

Edited to add video of the broadcast: Tonight at 6:00 p.m. MDT, the annual General Relief Society Meeting of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be broadcast for all adult women of the Church (and any other women who are interested in participating). You can get a live stream of the meeting here. The video broadcast will be held live in 15 languages on conference.lds.org. Many more languages will also be available live in audio format. LDS.org will live audio in 64 languages. If you have the Mormon Channel mobile app, you can listen live in English and Spanish on the iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Android, etc. If you have Roku TV Mormon Channel, you can also access it live. (Thanks to LDS Media Talk for the information.) For access to past Relief Society meetings, see the archive here. And for other Relief Society leadership teaching and training, see this page. To be able to access the meeting later on, The live video cached stream of the event will be available... Read the rest of this entry »

I was asked to put a spiritual presentation together for a casual, round table-type discussion we call “Conversations Amongst Sisters,” and I was assigned to base my “Conversations” program on two 33-year-old talks. Both were completely unfamiliar to me. One will now be a treasured favorite forever. It’s President Packer’s 1980 October Conference talk titled, “A Circle of Sisters.” His wisdom and insight were prophetic, and his words have been like a balm to my tired mommy-wife-grandmother soul. For anyone who thinks women are under-appreciated or under-valued by LDS men, read these words of a stunningly humble, in-touch, in-tune, LDS man and leader, and remember that they were delivered more than three decades ago, before the Women’s Movement had reached its apex, and before the terms marriage and family became political hot-buttons. I can’t imagine any mother who would reach the bottom of this quote and not feel honored... Read the rest of this entry »