Sunday Report

Today's lesson was a Presidency Message given by Linda Marler.  Her inspiration for the lesson came as a result of the season of her life, which finds her up to her eyebrows in the mothering of four active boys.  She especially enjoys the quiet bedtime activity she shares with her no "longer a baby" two year old,  winding down and reading from a stack of classic children's books.  They are of course for his entertainment, but with the need to do this lesson in the back of her mind, she  recently found herself listening to a perennial favorite, Tootle the Train, with a different ear.

The story tells of a young locomotive who is in training to become a big locomotive.   The locomotive will learn all the skills that  will be needed to become a successful locomotive.  The most important skill that each train must learn is staying on the rails no matter what. Tootle came to the school and was seen as a potentially successful flyer, running important routes, such as Chicago to New York.  He did very well in mastering most of the skills he would need to become such a wonderful locomotive, until one day he was tempted to race a black horse that was in the meadow beside the tracks.  In order to win he decided to leave the tracks and cut across the meadow.  He found that he really enjoyed the meadow and began visiting it more often.  The men who cared for the engines and taught them their lessons noticed grass and buttercups on the small train's wheels and knew they had to do something to help him remember the important lesson of staying on the rails no matter what.  So they all worked together to help Tootle be the best train he could possibly be.

She then compared the story to the situations we face as daughters of our Heavenly Father, wives, mothers, daughters, friends.  We have our rails, our designated paths that will lead us back to our Heavenly Father.  We have opportunities to learn and progress, serve others and be served, make and keep sacred covenants, magnify our callings and enjoy this beautiful world that we have been given.  Sometimes we find adversity along that path, disappointment and discouragement, frustration and even pain.  We suffer from the temptations of the world that would call us off of the path, to seemingly more glamorous places and activities, more worldly rewarding opportunities. 

But we have been given a higher calling and our path is to end in the most glorious opportunities, if we can stay the course and not be tempted by the siren call of the great and spacious building. One of the blessings that we have been given is the divinely established organization of Relief Society, where we learn the divinely inspired concept of watch care, by which we care for one another as sisters in Zion.  This watch care can keep us from straying from our path next to the iron rod.  Or it can give us an opportunity to stretch forth a hand to someone who is tempted to leave the path, for whatever reason.  Our innate strengths as women allow us to nurture and empathize with our sisters, especially through the inspired program of visiting teaching.

 

Next week the Relief Society lesson will be presented by the Stake Relief Society Presidency as part of our ward conference.
Have a great week and try to make it to the Saturday temple session.

The Relief Society Presidency