Relief Society Part 6 -- Something Extraordinary

(No, you didn't miss parts 3, 4 and 5. They are forthcoming.)


At the first meeting of the Relief Society, Emma Smith said,
“We are going to do something extraordinary, something really extraordinary.” Could she have known, could she possible have envisioned the destiny of this Society?

Could she have foreseen that this small gathering in an obscure town in a frontier region would spread to all four corners of the earth?
Could she have imagined this small group of twenty would grow to an organization of over five million sisters world-wide?
Could she have known of the increased opportunities for all women for education, political freedom, leadership and personal development that would come?

Who can gauge the effect Relief Society has had on the lives of millions of women whose knowledge has been increased, whose vision has been expanded, whose lives have been broadened and enriched?
Who can count the projects that have been undertaken, and the good that has been done by this society of sisters?
Who can fathom the acts of charity that have been performed, the faith that has been nurtured, the pains that have been eased, the food that has filled barren tables?
Who can measure the effect of this singular and divinely established institution?
Truly the Relief Society has done something extraordinary.

As women have been blessed, they in turn have blessed the lives of others.
A little thing here, a little thing there, as women all over the world
Warm the soup and the home and the heart;
Light a lamp and a mind and a life;
Change a bed and a soul and the world,
In small but important ways, making footprints in the sands of time, leaving a mark in the hearts and minds and lives of all of God’s children.

How vast is our purpose; how broad is our mission:
to cheer and to bless in humanity’s name.
For charity never faileth, and it endureth forever and ever—
Even in the Kingdom of our God, where we will all sit down together,
For we had charity, one for another.