Our "Gathering As Sisters" post series is designed to help us as sisters within our wards/branches see that we are part of a whole - that across the stake there are other groups of sisters gathering together in activities and service to support & teach one another and develop friendships as they fulfill the purposes of the Relief Society in building faith, strengthening families and providing relief. Each month through the end of this year, we will share one or two highlights from activities within our Relief Societies.
We have truly been blessed with our current Handbook of Instruction that allows each ward/branch to counsel together and then plan with inspiration according to their specific needs. We hope that by sharing some of the wonderful things happening within our wards/branches, we can understand better the individual yet similar needs we share as sisters in the Columbia Maryland Stake.
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Our Eldersburg Ward Sisters:
As a ward Eldersburg is focusing on preparedness and family history this year. Their Relief Society is holding activities that are helping the sisters build their 3 month supply of foods they would normally eat and on increasing their knowledge of the online tools for doing family history and preparing names for temple ordinances. In April they held a double activity as a follow up to ones previously held in February and March. Sisters could either continue their work on building a menu plan for their 3 month supply or they could receive one-on-one assistance with familysearch/family tree and ancestry.com questions. As a fun and useful treat, they asked sisters to bring items for a taster's table that were made from store brand or generic brand products - demonstrating that those items were not only less expensive for their storage, but tasted just as good as a higher priced version.
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Our Hampstead Ward Sisters:
Gardens were the theme in April for the Hampstead sisters. They had two classes - 1 on herb gardens by Sylvia Burciaga and 2 on basic gardening and container gardening by Jeanette Frye. It was a fun, casual and informative evening. We tasted lemonade with fresh mint leaves, homemade pesto, and mint jelly. There were seeds and mini pots for sample planting and of course the traditional dirt cakes with gummy worms.
