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Mormon women of every age and situation - mothers, daughters, single, working, widowed, elderly - can be "instruments in the hands of God," said several speakers Saturday night at the annual meeting of the LDS Church's Relief Society.
Thousands of women streamed into the Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City to hear the speeches, while thousands more watched via satellite transmission in LDS Church buildings worldwide. The Relief Society is open to all female members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 18 and older. Each congregation has a unit for its women.
The evening began with an eight-minute video, narrated by LDS President Gordon B. Hinckley, which told the story of the Relief Society's founding in 1842.
"The early sisters were a diverse group just like us," an emotional Bonnie D. Parkin told the audience. "Some were married, some single, some widowed, but they were united in purpose."
Parkin, General Relief Society president, told them there were "countless ways" to do God's work - ask a single woman what she likes, not why she's not married; share instead of accumulate; smile at a husband or a child who know they've caused frustration and heartache; teach in the nursery with a happy heart; and show that you are finding joy in the journey.
Kathleen H. Hughes, first counselor in the Relief Society Presidency, added to that list: "one kindness, one expression of love, one thoughtful gesture, one willing hand at a time."
She told the story of "Alicia," a teenager who had drifted away from the church. One Sunday, Alicia was visiting her grandfather in a retirement home and decided to attend an LDS service there.
She went into a Relief Society meeting and a woman she had never met beckoned her to take a nearby seat.
Alicia wondered what the woman would think of her body piercings and smell of smoke, but the woman didn't seem to mind. That turned Alicia around, Hughes said, and she returned to the church and later served an LDS mission.
"I only do one thing for myself when I go to church: I take the sacrament," Alicia told Hughes. "The rest of the time I watch for others who need me and I try to help and nurture them."
Parkin's other counselor, Anne C. Pingree, told of her own wrestling with a mission call to work with her husband in Nigeria. The idea of leaving married and single children as well as aging parents was difficult enough, but in a foreign country with political unrest and issues of safety?
Sometime later, after much prayer and anguish, Pingree read the words to a hymn: "Fear not, I am with thee. Oh, be not dismayed. For I am thy God and will still give thee aid."
She felt comforted and strengthened and ready to serve where she was needed.
James E. Faust, a member of the church's governing First Presidency, was the concluding speaker.
He reiterated the theme of becoming God's instrument, telling the women, "Your influence for good in your families, in the church, and in society . . . is incalculable and indescribable."
The LDS Relief Society is "a sisterhood and a place where women are instructed to build their faith and to accomplish good works," Faust said. "It is not confined to the young or the old, the rich or the poor, the little known or the public figure.
"Whatever our circumstances we all need someone who will listen to us with understanding, pat us on the back when we need encouragement, and nurture in us the desire to do better and to be better. Relief Society is designed to be such a circle of friendship."