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[SINGING] The church is organized in a unique way. First of all, family is the most important organization in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The core organization of the church is the family. And all of the organization is set to help and support the families. The father and mother and their kids, the widows and the singles. Each individual we consider as a family. We call our congregations a ward, which is led by a Bishop. My role as a Bishop is to help these families and individuals to come to Christ. As a Bishop, I can't do this work alone. And all of the work has the contribution of every single member. But specifically the leaders that we call to help those members. We have a Relief Society President. And the Relief Society President is the leader of all of the women. The Relief Society really is a service organization and the largest organization of women in the world. We focus on serving each other and serving other people throughout the world. We have leaders of young men and young women. The young women are ages 12 to 18. We bring them together as an organization to help them develop faith in Jesus Christ and learn of his teachings. And help them to find their identity as a daughter of God. I really feel real joy to see the next generation grow. Our goals in the young men's organization are to encourage good values within the boys. We also have the leaders of the children. My role as the Primary President is to help each one of the children to understand and know that they are a child of God. We have the men organized as a priesthood body. We meet together and we study the gospel. And we learn how to become better fathers, better husbands, better brothers, better sons, better functioning members of society. The men provide service to all of these families. They visit along with the women and they go house by house and do visits and they identify their needs. And the council me in ways that I can really help those families that might have any needs. As a Relief Society President, I meet with the bishop quite frequently and discuss the things that I see in the ward that he needs to address. And he relies quite a bit on this information. There is a great sense of unity and communion. We are brothers and sisters in a real sense. We suffer with those that are going through hardships. We rejoice in the success of the others. We help any others that might need to participate in anything that we can do to help our community, as well. A collection of congregations, or wards, is called a stake. A stake is led by a Stake President. I have nine Bishops. And it's my responsibility to oversee them and to train them. I reach out for the input of the women's leaders. The Church is worldwide. As a worldwide organization it's overseen by general leaders. As we learn in the New Testament, Jesus Christ called Twelve Apostles and additional disciples called 70 to help him teach the Gospel and serve people. Today the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the same organization. We believe that Jesus Christ is the head of the church, that he has called a prophet, and that we also have Twelve Apostles. Throughout the history of the world, the Lord has communicated through prophets to his people. Given what we're up against, how much more important and relevant is a mouthpiece of the Lord today? We believe that those men are able to receive an inspiration and a revelation from God. Wherever you go in any country in the world, the structure of the Church is exactly the same. You can go to a different congregation in Brazil or Nigeria and you're learning the same teachings of Jesus Christ. There's a unity throughout the world. The Church has what is called a lay clergy. The Bishops, the Stake Presidents, they don't go to universities for training. They are not paid monetarily. The time that they offer is completely on a voluntary basis. There's literally thousands of hours that are donated every single month to make the Church of Jesus Christ operate in our neighborhood and community. I have a desire to serve within the Church because I believe in Jesus Christ. And I believe in the power of love. I want to develop a stronger love for the people around me. And by serving them, I'm able to feel more love. He's given us so very much. And he asks so little in return. It's wonderful to be able to offer that service to him and on his behalf. In the end, the organizations of the Church really exists to help individuals and families. All of the activities and classes and organizations work together to help each member of the family to grow closer to God and to grow closer to each other. The sole purpose of this entire work, of all this lay ministry, and of all the volunteer hours is to bring families and individuals closer to our Savior, Jesus Christ. [MUSIC PLAYING]

How the Church is Organized

Description
A brief explanation of the organizational structure of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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