The Importance of Gathering as Latter-day Saint Women

Download Photo

This story appears here courtesy of TheChurchNews.com. It is not for use by other media.

By Andrea McConkie of the Relief Society General Advisory Council

Women are natural gatherers. We love to be together. As we’ve been studying the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints this year through the Doctrine and Covenants, I’ve spent time imagining what gatherings of those early women might have looked like, about all that may have happened around the earliest Relief Society meetings.

We know they did a lot of work to take care of each other temporally, but I wish I could hear the conversations where they cared for each other spiritually and emotionally — conversations where they shared testimony, nurtured faith and expressed love to each other in times of trial. 

Download Photo

I imagine those early Relief Society gatherings looked a lot like the gatherings we have in our Relief Societies today: Women of different ages and life experiences, women in different stages of faith, women with families that all look a little different, women who are trying to live the covenants they have made, all coming together. Women who love each other and share a love for Jesus Christ.

These gatherings are strengthening to me.

We gather in temples where we receive sacred ordinances and make binding covenants, learning about God’s love for us.

We gather weekly to partake of the sacrament and renew our commitment to always remember Jesus Christ and keep His commandments. We are reminded of the great privilege of always having His Spirit to be with us.

We gather in Relief Society meetings where we counsel together about relevant challenges, needs and opportunities in our lives (see General Handbook 9.2.1.2). We share the things that are in our hearts and on our minds and we learn the gospel together, led by inspired teachers. 

We gather in each other’s homes as we minister, where inspired conversations allow for greater understanding of challenges and successes. The Spirit may help us appreciate needs with new eyes, and we work out in our minds how we might be the Lord’s hands to help.

Download Photo

We gather in a ministering interview setting where we feel individually cared for and loved. We seek for heaven’s help as we counsel about the strengths and needs of sisters and families in our care.

We learn from the scriptures that gathering is important to the Lord and that He will be there when we gather in His name. He tells Joseph Smith: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, as I said unto my disciples, where two or three are gathered together in my name, as touching one thing, behold, there will I be in the midst of them — even so am I in the midst of you” (Doctrine and Covenants 6:32)

The opposite of gathering is to be separated. When Adam and Eve were sent out of the Garden of Eden, I’m sure they felt great sadness because they would be separated from the presence of God. What a miracle the Atonement of Jesus Christ is that allows us to overcome that separation and be gathered together again to Him.

President Russell M. Nelson invites us all to participate in the gathering of all of God’s children back to Him when he teaches us about the gathering of Israel. Knowing the joy and strength I find when I’m gathered with people I love who are around me right now, I live with hope that the joy will be multiplied as others join that gathering on both sides of the veil.

We are not meant to move through this life alone, and we don’t have to. I’m grateful to be a member of Relief Society, where we work together to help accomplish God’s work of salvation and exaltation (see General Handbook 9.1.1).