Bengaluru Stake Relief Society Activity

By Mary Xavier

“Turn on your lights”—Sister Sharon Eubank’s message for October 2017—was the theme of our stake Relief Society activity for this year 2018.

The purpose was to unite sisters, increase their self-worth, and enlighten their minds toward ministering and temple preparation.

All were excited. The preparations from the stake activity committee began. They started planning, organizing, and assigning sisters for the activity.

We were five wards and one branch, which was a big number to coordinate. Each ward’s sisters were assigned with a topic to present on the day of activity with a skit or presentation.

And these were the topics covered:

Being righteous
Being articulate/different/distinct
Being happy
Preparing for the temple
Being self-reliant
Ministering/the worth of souls

Each ward started preparing for their presentation on the activity day. The long wait came to an end.

‌It was a beautiful morning. When the activity began, there were not as many sisters as was expected. However, they began with an opening hymn and prayer. And slowly more sisters started coming in. There was a message from the stake Relief Society president. She displayed different kinds of lights and explained about each light, comparing it with the qualities of the sisters. It was a beautiful message.

Then the actual part of the sisters came. It was time for them to showcase or present their topics.

Here I would like to talk about the dedication and the commitment of one group of sisters of a small branch of another city which belongs to our stake. They had to travel two-and-half to three hours to join the activity. They began with the presentation of being righteous women. They were indeed righteous women by example.

Each group of sisters came forward and presented their topics in the form of skits. Every one of them had put in a lot of effort to convey the message in a spiritual way and with a little bit of humor.

We all laughed and enjoyed ourselves, but in the end of each presentation, we were touched by the Spirit for the messages they carried about how to be happy always, how to be articulate and different, how to be self-reliant, and how to prepare for the temple.

It was amazing to see how the sisters joined hands together, both young and old, in acting it out. Lastly it was concluded by the testimonies of a few sisters who strengthened ours for their commitment to the gospel.

We all were given a framed picture of lights to remind us to turn on lights that we have and give light to others and also to help others to turn on theirs as well. Along with it was a reminder of the four things President Nelson challenged the sisters to do during the last general conference.

On the whole, the activity was great! The stake Relief Society presidency had planned very hard to put all this together for us to learn and enjoy at the same time. They even had to work till midnight to pack those gifts for the sisters. We could see and feel the love and dedication they had for all of us and they turned on their lights. The sisters from the KGF Branch were different and articulate by setting an example of traveling so far to show how much they loved the Lord.