Happy Birthday to the Relief Society!

So I'm a little off as far as the date goes, but it's pretty good of me to recognize this birthday all together on here, I think, especially since it's not a sibling. But the truth be known, I happened to have my camera in my car because it's spring and I've been contemplating spring shots. So when I saw it on my seat on my way out of the car to this birthday celebration, I thought that sounded like a good idea to bring it. The pictures didn't turn out terrifically, but at least it made me think to post them here.

So, a little history. The Relief Society's birthday date, which we were reminded of in a trivia game we played, is March 17, 1842. It was organized because the men working on the Nauvoo temple needed shirts to wear for their work, so the women organized themselves and got Joseph Smith, Jr., the prophet, to thinking and praying on the subject, and from that came an organization with far broader purposes than its origination imagined. Currently, it's the largest women's organization in the world, and it's been around for quite awhile too. Every female member of the Church who is 18 years or older, or who is married, if younger, is a member. If a younger woman has a child, she is invited to join, but she does not have to.

The motto of the Relief Society is "Charity Never Faileth," taken from the Book of Mormon, the Book of Moroni. As the words indicate, the purpose of the Relief Society is to bless lives. The way this is done is manifold. The party indicated in the pictures above is from an Enrichment night. Every quarter (four times a year), each ward unit's Relief Society has an Enrichment night and in March, it is to be in celebration of the R.S. birthday. Enrichment activities are typically a night for women to get away from the daily grind and socialize with each other. Often, they involve dinner, a craft, and a little lesson. Sometimes they might involve a broader service project. Sometimes, particularly around Christmas time, it's predominantly crafts. (These are often, too, in the morning, rather, so the meal is breakfast.) In addition to these quarterly activities, there are also "groups" or "clubs" of special interests for the sisters to attend. Some common ones are book clubs, play group for mothers to bring their kids together, excursion groups, dinner groups. All women are invited to all of these, but usually because they're focused on special interests, attendance is pretty small--it's just nice to get together with a few women, get to know them better, learn more, be enriched, you know.

Another thing the Relief Society does is Visiting Teaching. Every woman is assigned a visiting teacher from her ward unit. Ideally, she has at least two, and sometimes even three--but at least one. Most women are visiting teachers, too, though if someone doesn't want to be one, they don't have to. As a visiting teacher, a woman has at least one sister, typically around 3, but depending on the size of the ward or branch, she may have more sisters, whom she is assigned to visit and teach a lesson. (The general presidency and committee in Salt Lake put the lessons together in each month's Ensign, the Church magazine.) If she's not able to visit, she can also write a letter or call the sister(s) just to see how she's doing and kind of be a friend. It's a neat program and blesses a lot of people when it works well.

The Relief Society also has a Compassionate Service committee in each unit, a group that helps provide meals, most commonly, to new mothers and others with health needs. They are often also in charge of making sure each sister's birthday is recognized. Other things might fall under this category depending on the imaginations and inspirations of the particular members.

Each ward/branch unit also meets every Sunday and has a lesson and sings together.

So you're wondering, if everything is done at the ward/branch level, how is it the largest organization? Isn't it more like thousands of small organizations? Well, no. It really is organized and run from Church headquarters. The general presidency speaks to the entire Relief Society once a year, a week before the general conference of the Church in October. They also prepare training materials and give training sessions for the unit leaders. Then, in addition to the general level, there is also the stake level--the umbrella over a group of wards/branches, between 5 and 12. Prior to the general Relief Society session at the end of September, the stake leaders usually organize a dinner and activity and a service project. Also, they visit each ward once or twice a year, as well as the leaders meet with the ward level leaders on a semi-regular basis, for trickle down training as well as for area-specific counsel.

Anyway, most of my readers are probably familiar with all of that and might not have read this far, but I think a few people who aren't members of the Church might visit, so what the heck. In any case, it's a great organization, and I'm glad to be a part of it. Happy Birthday Relief Society!

Gratitude for digitization and search engines

When I first was hearing about Google's big scheme to digitize every book ever written, I was on the publisher's side--not in favor. Working in a job that required me to understand copyright laws to a certain extent, it seemed their goal was clearly in breach.

On the other side of the coin, though, I can't say that I would be entirely opposed to having every book available digitally. I don't think Google should take it upon themselves to do this without publishers' permission. Nor do I think they should have a monopoly. And this is not because I want to read whatever books I can for free, or have easy access to hack into them. I don't even want to read books digitally. I'd much rather read a book away from my computer.

However, there are great advantages to digital versions. For one, I've long wondered why there are never commercials on television for books. It seems such a shame, doesn't it? We get ads for all kinds of nonsense, but not for this. As I was contemplating this last night while watching a TV movie, it occurred to me that ads for movies include attention-grabbing snippets from the movie. This might be a little difficult to do with books. Sure, you could create mini visual scenes from the book, but the joy in the book for many people is the ability to imagine those things without having the media create the image for you. So it would seem more beneficial to advertise with readable snippets. How could this be done? Well, perhaps not so easily on television, but with a few digitized pages available on internet ads, it could be done.

Another reason I would love to have digitized books would be when it comes to writing a paper in which I have to quote books. I must say I would love to have searchable copies of all books available. The search engine is a fabulous invention.

Today, I am working on my thesis essay and have read a few of the books I'm using at least twice and flipped through trying to find the place where something happened on several occasions. I did this kind of thing quite a bit as an undergraduate, but not quite to the extent I have to now, I think--I mean for the same books, time after time. It does get kind of tiresome.

So today I am expressing my gratitude for Amazon because they have acquired rights to copy many books, including at least one that I have to use (found a second after the original post. Yea!). I searched Amazon for the book, then searched the book for some significant key words, and then opened my paper copy and read until I found what I needed. Ta da!

So, maybe now I'm a little torn about the Google thing. There are a number of books I'd like to quote from that aren't Amazon searchable. Could the publishers maybe possibly hurry up with digitizing everything?

Professionally Speaking

For the past five weeks I've been temping at a medical facility, doctor's office type of thing--in the medical records department. It's customer service, but not entirely on the telephone, so a little better than some jobs I've had. My first day, I confess, I was really irritated with the situation having been burned from the last job I had, but it hasn't turned out to be too terrible.

I even had some interesting things to think about the last few days I was working there. See, one of the doctors in the Gastro-Intestinal department had dumped a large pile of old paperwork that needed to be prepared for scanning, which meant removing staples and taping xrays down against paper, and assuring the patients' id numbers were there as well as his signature. That part wasn't terribly interesting. I didn't particularly care to look at all of the xrays much either. Seeing people's innerds doesn't strongly appeal to me. Thinking that someone else found that fascinating, however, was interesting.

What intrigued and got me to thinking that this doctor really enjoyed what he did was seeing that not only did he have xrays, but he also drew little diagrams for his patients of the organs in a way people are a little more accustomed to seeing them, like in a health book. Of course, like his patients, I've seen the organ lay out a few times before, so it's not that that intrigued me, but that he drew these diagrams over and over. If it had bored him, he might have just found some picture from a health book to point things out to his patients.

So I got to wondering, what kind of a person thinks to himself as a child, "Oh boy, I can't wait to study more about people's bowels. Making sure people can poop less painfully is the most important thing I can see myself doing with my life." Maybe a small child, but after a certain point, some people might wonder if the child was stuck in the anal stage of growth a little bit too long. Yet obviously, seeing that he's a successful gastro-intestinal doctor now, obviously he wasn't. And many, many people are grateful he has a fascination with intestines.

Of course, maybe he wasn't like that as a child. Perhaps the specific interest didn't come until he was in medical school, or at some other point. Who knows. But still, to think that at some point, he chose that specific field. But then it extends beyond that. To think that so many women and men like him are needed around the country and around the world. And not only these gastro-intestinal people, but so many other specific fields of interest. The lungs, the feet, the liver, etc. Things that aren't as high profile as the heart or the brain, yet so very important. Isn't the diversity of interests in the world a testimony of God in itself?

I remember a cute Sesame Street sketch from when I was a kid where the monsters were going to have a potluck picnic, but they didn't assign anyone what they would bring, and so everyone brought potato salad. I'm sure it followed with two or three more trip-ups, as comedy sketches go, but I remember it was funny, and a good lesson about organization, communication and cooperation. Sometimes that is needed. So when it works out without everyone convening to decide who's going to do what, you kind of have to think, Someone else's hand must be in this.

What Might Have Been

With recent old friend findings on Facebook (ooh, like that alliteration!), as mentioned recently below, my mind has reflected to ye old college days wondering what would have happened if... I'd married so and so, if I'd realized so and so was more interested earlier, I had lived in this apartment instead of that one, I'd moved out of the complex all together where I lived most of my college years...in short, if I had gotten married while I was in college.

The results of this line of thinking can be interesting to ponder. They can lead to gratitude for things one has been able to do instead. But since I never had much ambition about getting a fancy job or great travels, etc. (still haven't even travelled all that much)--I instead tend toward the line of thinking--maybe I wouldn't have this huge debt I have now, or maybe I'd have my own kids, maybe I'd have someone to cuddle with... in short, maybe my life wouldn't be so hard.

But, as a friend once told me, (not directly to me--it was a testimony, but I felt it was to me) life is actually fair. He was quoting some general authority, dont' remember the specifics, except that it made sense. If life weren't fair then God would not be just and merciful and loving and perfect, to make life easier on some than on others. Knowing of the disasterous circumstances some people live in, the shortness of some lives compared to some, it's an odd thing to consider. But we really don't know all of the facts about these lives, particularly their pre-mortal and post mortal lives or what gifts and blessings the Lord has given them to help them endure. Certainly people don't "deserve" hard lives, but at the same time, I think they will be blessed above what we are able to understand. There's another quote about God's filling our voids with blessings equal or greater to the size of the pain. Sorry, no specifics again.

But I do have one specific. I had actually been on the above line of thinking yesterday or the day before when this memory came into my head to help alleviate the downward spiral. In 1993, I was hit by a minivan while crossing the street on my way to work. I did suffer some, broke my first bone of record--the orbital bone in my right eye. I might have broken a toe or two before, but never had it verified because the doctor wouldn't have been able to do anything about it.

Anyway, I had felt particularly nervous about going to work that day, with no pinpointable reason, but I do remember feeling anxious about it, and feeling like I should get a ride or something. It was raining, but I had walked to work in the rain before. I even asked my roommate for a ride, knowing she didn't like to be the apartment cab company, and she, of course, said no. I think she had a good excuse, but I don't remember.

I even thought about not going. I don't remember the specifics of that time period, but I might have just been obligated to certain number of hours per week, rather than a daily schedule, but it was easier to go x number of hours per day. Anyway, I went anyway. And the rest is history.

After it happened, my mind had a tendency into the what might have been thinking, particularly given some comments one or two people made. Most people were sympathetic and compassionate, but there were a few who didn't understand some things, accusing me of not looking where I was going, and such like.

A new guy had moved into the ward, a nice guy, a cute guy, and I'd even talked to him a few times, and some friends had decided to do this girls-ask-guys thing, so I'd even gotten up the courage and asked him, which is really, really rare for me. Anyway, so with my little accident, that was, of course, cancelled. And before I was really well enough, he had found a girlfriend. So, how could I not help but wonder what might have happened if I hadn't left for work that day?

Well, fortunately for me, one of my professors, my grammar professor of all people, had encouraged us to read D&C 93. And these are the verses that stood out, 24 and 25: "And ^atruth is ^bknowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come; And whatsoever is ^amore or less than this is the spirit of that wicked one who was a ^bliar from the beginning."

Where does "what might have been?" fall into this definition of truth? It isn't what is, what was or what is to come, so it must be more or less than that, and therefore a lie. Isn't that interesting?

I have brought this up to some people before and there is some argument that there are scriptures that talk about how life would have been better if so and so hadn't sinned. And that is truth. It is also true that President Monson likes to remind us of the whole picture of our lives, saying to learn from the past, live in the present and prepare for the future. So if we can learn from our sins, that life would be better if we didn't, then we can progress. But when no sin is involved, and even to a certain extent when it is, doesn't it make sense that we not dwell on what might have been but rather take those lessons and live in the present and prepare for the future? After all, we can't change the past, so it's a fruitless endeavor, and Satan is the master of fruitlessness.

Another Story about Conversation

I think I'm doing a little trip on Memory Lane because of the recent finding of many of my college friends. But I have another story about conversation that's actually kind of funny and more critical of myself.

After my mission, so five years after the last story, I was still interested in conversation, not too surprisingly. But this time I did get someone to play along with me. A few people, actually. I had this funny idea, maybe it was a group effort with my roommate--she played along in any case and helped come up with the list--to see if we could get some people to answer some rather obscure questions in the course of a conversation. I don't remember all the rules, but it seemed like you got more points for more of the questions you got out. Mostly it was just for curiosity sake and not competition since we were usually together for the conversations.

Most of the people we got into these conversations with--yes I say "people," in a non-gender specific way, but the truth is they were all men--recognized it was a little odd but played a long for a little while. But Dale Caswell, my good buddy, let us play through to the end. He never even commented on how odd it was. What a good sport he was! He liked to talk and we liked to listen to his Connecticut accent anyway. Fun times!

So, if you want to play this game, I dare you! Think of a list of like 10 questions and have some fun. Or include something like this with characters in your book--it's a very young adult kind of thing to do.

Our questions I don't think I have any more, but they were something like this:

1. What's your middle name
2. Where was your third missionary companion from?
3. What was the name of your fifth grade teacher?
4. What did you do last Valentine's Day?

My mind is really blank, but we had about 10 or more questions. Have fun!