MY WIFE'S TALK: This was given a few weeks ago as we spoke for the last time in our ward, on our last Sunday there. (I will post my talk soon too.)

"As it is our last Sunday in the Cambridge First ward, I feel beholden to offer some reflection on what I have gained during my time here. I would like to frame musings in the context of womanhood in the global church.

My tenure in the Cambridge First ward has given me the opportunity to develop my relationships with other women on many levels. While most women’s sojourn in Cambridge brings with it an infant, my trespass has allowed me the opportunity to find common ground with the woman of our ward and to define my space is as a woman within the church as a whole.

When I entered this ward, a saw that the women here had many differences: age, marital status, stage of life, career progression, race and motherhood. At first I was overwhelmed: what is it that I could find in common with a mother of two? With a widow? With a refugee? I was lost for a solution and frustrated with my surroundings. What I needed was a paradigm shift: it was not our differences, but our similarity, that makes us sisters. What is consistent is the sacredness of what binds up together: womanhood.

The lexicon that the Church uses to describe this common bond begins with Young Women. For those of you of have had the opportunity to participate in the Yong Women’s program will be familiar with this theme:
We are daughters of our Heavenly Father, who loves us, and we love Him. We will “stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places” (Mosiah 18:9) as we strive to live the Young Women values, which are:

- Faith
- Divine Nature
- Individual Worth
- Knowledge
- Choice and Accountability
- Good Works and
- Integrity

We believe as we come to accept and act upon these values, we will be prepared to strengthen home and family, make and keep sacred covenants, receive the ordinances of the temple, and enjoy the blessings of exaltation.
It is at this pivotal time in a young woman’s life, the church begins introducing what is important for her to focus on. The church has defined common values that are applicable to all women globally:
- Faith
- Divine Nature
- Individual Worth
- Knowledge
- Choice and Accountability
- Good Works and
- Integrity
This is also the first time that the concept of a return on investment will occur (excuse the financial reference), which is that “if we come to accept and act upon these values” that the following items will occur:
• We will be prepared to:
o Strengthen home and family
o Make and keep sacred covenants
o Receive the ordnances of the temple
o Enjoy the blessings of exaltation.
This promise is repeated at the beginning of every young woman’s meeting. To this day, I am sure that the majority of the women here can say this theme by heart. My thought is how does this translate, literally, in a global context?
For me, Young Women’s had been a time of achievement. I meet each class with the goal to receive my medallions: Beehive, Miamaid and Laurel. Every “New Beginnings Meeting” was like heading the jewelry store. My senior year culminated with my Young Women’s Achievement medallion and my Seminary Diploma.

Ready to take on the world, I charged into Relief Society as a slightly naive, ambitious young woman in Upstate New York, I can remember wondering what this next phase would bring. I’ll never forget receiving my first Relief Society Manual, “Remember Me,” and reviewing the exhilarating topics, such as:
• Personal Grooming and Cleanliness
• Gardening in Small Spaces
• Preventing Accidents in the Home
• Mothers in Israel.
I promptly left for college.

I want to undergraduate school in Pennsylvania at a very large university with a very small Mormon population. This was nothing new to me as a native New Yorker, but what was new was the quality of my Institute. Our CES director was also our Bishop, so my ward customized lessons, took twists and turns and found it necessary (and ok) to “adapt” the manual to meet our demographic group.

Upon moving to Manhattan midst a career change, I was called to be in the Relief Society Presidency of our very large, very migratory singles ward. We had a number of outreach programs that we were managing as well as trying to maintain a semblance of order with the far reaching needs of our ward.

We found that many of our sisters who moved to NY were there to escape the church. It was typical to have phone calls from family members asking us to find these sisters and to reach out to them. In such a large city, it is easy to be lost and hard to be found. For those who were attending, we had a number of challenges within our diverse population: single motherhood, same sex attraction, drug addition, depression, loneliness, work/life pressures, school demands, the list goes on.

One of the ways we met that challenge was to divide our RS into two lesson groups and offer a large variety of teachers, some were a little edgier than others, but this “choose your own adventure” allowed women to find guidance that met their needs.

When I began traveling internationally on business, I had the opportunity to see the gospel in action in multiple countries around the world. I remember the first time I heard a lesson in modest dressing, where the manual talked about prudently purchasing your clothing and not coveting the dress of others, in a third world nation, where clothes were donated from aid agencies and then sold on the street by industrious people.

I remember a lesson in young women’s about food storage, in Manhattan, where space is premium and our number one goal was to keep the young women off the streets, in school and chaste.

I attended church in Hong Kong where women from Taiwan, Korea and other employment challenged countries attend the English speaking ward since it offered “more opportunities” than the Mandarin speaking ward. The ward was filled with women, women who had left their homes because of their multi-lingual capabilities to work in Hong Kong to support their families back home.

This juxtaposition: womanhood and its divine role v. there daily adversities. As the role of women change within the church, we see that women are waiting longer to be married or not finding the opportunity to marry at all. They are completing their educations and exploring the opportunity of promising, fulfilling careers. Women are bearing children later in life than ever before.

But wait, this woman exists where? What about the women of genocide in Africa? What about the employment opportunities in South America? What about the living circumstances of South East Asia? Do these locations and cultures change our construct of womanhood? Of the life choices available to women? And their behavioral patterns?

Womanhood: its divinity cannot be denied. As the global church begins to develop its lexicon and pedagogy, I think we will begin to see a paradigm shift in the woman they are addressing. The woman of the global church has basic needs/wants/desires that can be translated into language in any country. Basic values of:
- Faith
- Divine Nature
- Individual Worth
- Knowledge
- Choice and Accountability
- Good Works and
- Integrity
can be addressed and understood in all circumstances of life. Regardless of where I attend church, the love in Relief Society for sisters is always present. Sisters, I encourage us all to reach out to all of the sisters of our ward. We have such a rich diversity here, find common ground in the church and ourselves. I foresee the Church modeling after this concept and shifting our paradigm back to its basic values and principles.

For me, coming back to basics occurred in my backyard. I truly love the women of this ward and I have been blessed with deep, life-long friendships. I have also placated my role as a woman in this expanding global Church and hope to provide support, as it continues to evolve. I have been grateful for the opportunity to serve, to live and to love with you in the Cambridge First ward.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen."