Be charitable, LDS women are urged

Speaking of the great legacy left by early Latter-day Saint women, President Henry B. Eyring asked modern LDS women Saturday evening to be charitable.

"Charity is born of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and is an effect of his Atonement working in the hearts of members," said President Eyring, first counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "There are many benevolent groups of women who do great good. There are many who have overpowering feelings of sympathy for the unfortunate, the sick and the needy. But (the Relief Society) is unique and has been from its start."

President Eyring offered closing remarks at the LDS Church's General Relief Society Meeting, held in the Conference Center in downtown Salt Lake City and broadcast to LDS meetinghouses across the globe.

Also addressing the worldwide congregation of women were Sister Julie B. Beck, Relief Society general president, and her counselors, Sister Silvia H. Allred and Sister Barbara Thompson.

Each of the four leaders spoke on different aspects of the history and administration of Relief Society, the LDS Church's organization for women, which was founded in 1842. They encouraged Latter-day Saint women to take advantage of the blessings that Relief Society affords them. They also announced changes to the name of weekly Relief Society meetings. Now "home, family and personal enrichment meetings" will be simply called "Relief Society meetings."

The change came in response to concerns about the complexity of that title and the different interpretation about the purpose of those meetings, said Sister Beck. Relief Society presidents, working with their bishops, can now determine how to use the meetings to "address spiritual and temporal needs of individuals and families in the ward and to strengthen sisterhood and unity," she said.

During his remarks, President Eyring addressed the topic, "The Enduring Legacy of Relief Society."

"I will speak to you tonight of the great legacy those who went before you in the Relief Society have passed to you," said President Eyring. "The part of the foundation they laid for you which seems to me most important and persistent is that charity is at the heart of the society and was to come into the heart, to be part of the very nature, of every member."

He said charity to early Latter-day Saint women meant far more than a feeling of benevolence. In the foundation they created, those sisters set "charity never faileth" at the center. "It served them at the beginning; it served them in the great period that followed; it serves them now in a new time; and it will serve the Relief Society in all the periods ahead."