Happy Birthday, Relief Society

Whew! Glad this activity is over... I've been the enrichment counselor in the RS presidency in my ward for 2 1/2 years now. I have really enjoyed it, but every once in a while we have a really big activity that totally stresses me out! I'm always afraid I will forget an important detail or something. Every March, we have a commemoration/celebration of the organization of the Relief Society. So this year, we teamed up with 2 other wards and had a big ol' party. One of the wards is a "family" ward (mine), one is a "singles" ward, and one is the Spanish ward. We decided to ask a few sisters to give a little presentation about their home country so that we could learn about the wonderful diversity that exists in RS and especially in our area of New York City- we had reps from the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Honduras, Peru, Canada, France & Korea. We were originally intending on a kind of cultural potluck (we have a lot of returned missionaries etc and hoped to have lots of different treats from different countries), but in true Latino fashion, the Spanish ward showered us with lots and lots of incredible food! They did an amazing job and it was more like a dinner feast than just "refreshments." We don't really get many chances to interact with the other wards, and for many of the sisters there is an english/spanish language barrier. But this event was really a success, I think, in bringing us together despite our communication differences. There were about 80 sisters in attendance, which was great!

Just a couple of shoutouts: To Marci for making the awesome cake! To the men in the 1st & 3rd wards for taking care of our kids! And to the sisters who presented for their amazing preparations!!