Despite the storm brewing in the sky that night, we had a GREAT turnout for our May Relief Society meeting! The theme was "Rock, Paper, Scriptures." We focused on ways to come closer to the Savior and "hold to the rod." Carrie opened up the evening with some personal experiences and a wonderful video emphasizing the importance of daily scripture study in our lives. We then split into three classes and got to take part in some great discussions. ROCK Teryl told us about her grandfather and the house he built one rock at a time. It was a three year process but the results were a house with a strong foundation and walls that would stand through the years. Even after the house was vandalized, it still maintained its structure and has been fixed up and still stands today. She tied this in with our own lifelong efforts to build upon the rock of our Redeemer. Helaman 5:12 states: And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall. PAPER  Brianne led a great discussion on journaling and how it blesses our lives-- and the lives of our posterity! We talked about different kinds of journals we can keep: scrapbooks online journals (someone suggested we all try out www.ldsjournal.com !) good old fashioned pen and paper journals family journals scripture journals gratitude journals blogs Not only can we benefit from looking back at past journal entries, but our future children and grandchildren may be able to gain something from them as well. If you think about it, the scriptures themselves are record keeping and "journaling" of ancient prophets. So, in a way, our personal journals we keep can be like our own "scripture" we are writing for our future children and grandchildren to learn and grow from. SCRIPTURES (Holding to the rod): Kimberly lassoed us up and took us on a little obstacle course to drive home her point. Her instructions to us were only this: "Hold on to the rope and follow me." So the group was all walking along clumped together in the loop of the rope. We thought getting up the narrow stairway to the stage was difficult... ...but that seemed like nothing when we realized we hand to climb under a small table!!! Kimberly just kept repeating "Just hold on to the rope and follow me." Most groups went through the whole thing trying to stay inside the loop of the rope. This last group made the realization as they were trying to cram under the table that Kimberly never said they had to stay in the loop. They just had to hold onto the rope! They realized that it would be much easier if they untied the loop and just each held onto it in a straight line.  This was a great object lesson that brought us closer together as sisters (literally). We discussed the point of this exercise and applied it to our own journeys in life. Sometimes we get too caught up in doing things a certain way or a way we think it should be done or even the way that MOST people do it. But, that isn't always the most effective way. Ultimately, our instruction is to "hold to the rope and follow me"-- or hold to the rod and follow Him. We need to try to get rid of those distractions or unimportant things that sometimes make it so much more difficult than it needs to be! We shared different things we personally do to bring ourselves closer to Christ and our Heavenly Father-- different ways we have found to do things that work well for US personally. Whether it was methods of scripture study or ways to get rid of distractions in life. After these awesome messages we joined back together to close our meeting. Carrie invited each of us to take a rock from the table in the back of the room and write on it something that was a "spiritual rock" in our lives. Either a favorite scripture or quote. We can display these rocks somewhere as a reminder of having that strong foundation in our lives. And... of course we enjoyed some tasty refreshments together! We had fruits and veggies and dips. Our new friend Ann even brought some delicious Pilipino dishes for us to try! A tasty sesame noodle dish and some potstickers. We always have a great time getting together as sisters and visiting together. And tonight was no different.