The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or The LDS Church has an official organization for all sorts of philanthropic activities known as the LDS Relief Society. It is a women’s organization founded in the year 1842 in Nauvoo, Illinois, USA. The LDS Relief Society is known as one of the world’s largest and oldest women’s organizations.
There are some interesting facts about the LDS Relief Society given below.
The motto of the LDS Relief Society is ‘œCharity Never Faileth’ which means that the committee will never fail from loving and helping one another, they will always serve the church. This is a sign of their universal sisterhood.
The main motive of the association is to provide proper guidance, leadership, education and compassionate service to the ones who need it. The main bodies of the organization are instructed by the Government to take charity measures for the ones who need it.
They have weekly classes based on spiritual themes and compassionate service. Apart from that they train women for home management and family education as well. There are Welfare Service Projects too that are undertaken by visiting teachers.
The organization started with a meeting at Sarah M. Kimball’s place in Nauvoo where the women had gathered to form a sewing club for the Nauvoo Temple workmen. The Prophet was overwhelmed by their humble effort and gave the idea of forming a sisterhood just as priesthood.
Emma Smith was elected the first president there who again chose two council members. Soon after, a treasurer and a secretary were also appointed and they kept on recruiting other officers in due course. It was all done by election and support.
In the year 1854, President Young decided to help the Native Indians along with sixteen members from the Relief Society. They formed several groups and started helping the Laminitis or the Native Indians. They even took up short range projects for them like weaving carpets, bedding and other handicrafts.
The Utah expedition in the year 1857 caused a chaos that was the foremost reason for the demise of the LDS Relief Society. The organization lacked a stabilized central back bone.
The Society actively took part in a major number of bold economic activities assisted by the Church. It had about 300 sub-divisions by 1880. They had their own meeting halls in certain wards. They even took the initiative to trade home-made materials.
The Relief Society had helped the Church in many ways after the war as a part of emergency support and assistance. The European Saints were sent food, clothing and a lot of quilts that were stored in Canada by the sisters. Similarly, the Hawaiian sisters lent a helping hand to Japan.
The grain storage scheme of the society was most commercialized from the economic point of view. It was initiated by Sister Walls and it was carried on till the end of World War I in 1918. It was when the LDS Relief Society sold around 205,518 bushels of the storage to the Government of U.S.
The main aim of the Relief Society was to help the poor in local level, especially in different wards where the members were always looking for opportunities of spiritual growth and sisterhood.
