Lesson - Come Join With Us :)

Lucy taught us a wonderful lesson today, based on President Uchtdorf's talk from October's General Conference.

These are Lucy's feelings about the message:


The beautiful message of Elder Uchtor'fs talk was 'Regardless of your circumstances, your personal history, or the strength of your testimony, there is room for you in this Church.' A reminder of how precious a gift it is to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. Having an active faith we should put aside our doubts and confidently live the gospel for others to see the happiness and peace that can be felt by all. I felt very strongly that no matter who we are, how insecure or significant we may feel, we all have a role to play and we all belong to our Heavenly Father who loves us more then we could ever comprehend. We need to walk daily with the Saviour, our hearts fully turned to his plan for us and be committed to being his hands and disciples on earth today.

How glad I am for modern day revelation. We are never left on our own!!

If you want to watch the whole talk it can be found here:

Come Join With Us

We love you sisters - there truly is a place for every one of you.

Announcements - 24 November 2013

We have quite a few announcements this week, so here goes:

Our Missionaries:

It is time to start thinking about Christmas parcels for the missionaries serving from our ward. It is too late and the post is too erratic to get a parcel to Elder Pentreath, however letters would be fantastic.  We need these to be on A4 paper - one side of an A4 sheet and only ONE sheet each family please.  We need these NEXT SUNDAY so they reach him in time.  Please pass to one of the RS Presidency.

We also need items for Elder Mateer's parcel NEXT SUNDAY so this will reach the USA in time.  Suggested items include: Chocolate / Pens and Pencils / Writing Pads / Spiritual Thoughts / Testimony Experiences / Scripture Markers etc.  Again please pass these to the RS Presidency.  We would love to include a letter from each family to Elder Mateer within the parcel too.

We will be passing out sign up sheets for Elder Esteves and Elder Pereira's parcels in the next couple of weeks.

A wonderful new arrival:

Some of you may have glanced a brief view of the wonderful new arrival in the Vinas family today, a beautiful little baby girl called Abigail.  Very best congratulations to Eva and family.


Compassionate Service Need:

As many of you know Sister Dawdry has not been well recently and Derrick is due to have some surgery this week.  We wish to provide meals for them on Monday - Thursday next week (2nd Dec - 5th Dec).  If any sisters are able to help with these please can you speak to Cristina Torres. 

Also Delores who was recently baptized has had a fall and injured herself and is not able to get about at the moment.  We would very much appreciate if some of you Portuguese speaking sisters would drop her a note / give her a call so she knows we are thinking of her.  If you need contact details please let us know.

Youth Baptisms:

The youth are going to the London Temple on December 27th to do some baptisms and we need to have 10 family file cards for each youth who will be participating.  Wherever possible it is requested that the families of the youth provide these.  Where we have a shortfall we would like to ask other members in the ward to assist with providing family file cards.  Can both parents of youth and other members who can assist with providing names please confirm with Jonathan Benmore asap so we can ensure as many youth as possible can attend.

Christmas Activities:

Our ward RS Christmas activity 'A Silent Christmas' is being held a week on Friday (Friday 6th December) at 7.30pm.  A light supper will be served.  It will be a very special evening and will allow us the opportunity to have a break from the Christmas preparations and remember what is most important.  We would love you all to come and join in the evening with us.

Our Stake Christmas music festival is on Saturday 7th December - more details to follow.

Our Ward Christmas activity is on Saturday 14th December at 6-8pm and will be a 'Christmas market' with lots of activities and fun things to do.  This is an ideal time to invite friends and family along.  If you require any further information please speak to Louise.

Visiting Teaching:

And one last reminder, we are almost at the end of November - have you contacted your sisters yet?  Please try and do so this week if not and ensure your reports and figures are passed to us or to Sue Kennedy.

Thank you for all the amazing things you do.

Love
Louise, Sara and Fatima

Announcements - 17 November 2013

• This week is our Ward Temple week.  The timings of the endowment sessions have changed at the London Temple.

          Tuesday - Friday these now start at: 9am / 10am / 11.15am / 12.15pm
        1.30pm / 2.30pm / 4pm / 5pm / 6pm / 7pm / 8pm (Fri only)

          Saturday the times are: 8am / 9am / 9.30am / 10am / 10.30am
       11.15am / 11.45am / 12.15pm / 12.45pm / 2pm / 3pm

• Friday 6th December at 7.30pm is our ward R/S Christmas activity.  We have something very special planned this year and would love as many of you as possible to come. 

• Saturday 7th December - Stake Christmas Activity.  Details to follow

• Saturday 14th December - Ward Christmas Activity.  This will be a wonderful activity where friends can be invited to come along.  If any of you world enjoy getting involved in the organisation of this activity, please let Louise know.  Exciting things are in the offing :)

• Please also remember next Sunday is the Primary Sacrament Presentation.  A wonderful opportunity to invite friends and family to see our little ones and the spirit they always bring

  

Fed and Happy :)

Kim Spencer did it again - a wonderful food storage evening full of knowledge and goodies to try!!

Tonight was all about bread and wheat.  We started with a review of how to make Nauvoo Bread - a very easy recipe that can be used as bread, rolls or pizza bases.  Give it a go, you won't regret it !!

5 cups hot water                                        1/2 cup potato flakes

1/2 cup sugar                                            1 cup powdered milk

2tbsp salt                                                  1/2 cup oil

2 tbsp. yeast                                             10-12 cups bread flour

Combine hot water, oil, shortening, potato flakes, powdered milk and sugar.

Stir.  When temperature is tepid, add the yeast.

Mix in 5 cups of flour and the salt.  Stir to a smooth sponge.

Add the rest of the flour to make a smooth elastic dough. 

Leave to rise until double with a wet tea towel over the bowl.

After about 45 mins, punch down and let rise again. 

Shape into loaves and let rise.

Bake in 190 degree oven for about 35 mins.

This will make 4 loaves.

We then learnt how to cook and use wheat in various ways - if you want more details speak to Kim.

Then came the best part of the evening...the eating !!!  Kim had made loads of yummy goodies for us to try.  Pizza, Minestrone Soup, Cakes, Pancakes, Bread, Cheese Scones - you name it, we had it !!!

Kim has copies of the recipes for anyone who wants them.

Annoucements - 10 Nov 2013

• We are excited to confirm The London Temple reopens on Tuesday.  Saturday is our Stake Temple Day and the week commencing Nov 19th is our Ward Temple week.  Please make every effort to make the temple part of your month.

• This Wednesday at 7.30pm is our Food Storage evening:  We will be learning how to use wheat in our everyday cooking, and also how to make bread. And as Kim Spencer is in charge of the evening we can be sure there will be lots of yummy treats to taste!  So come along and be inspired!

• Saturday we have the baptism of Stuart at 5pm - all are invited.

• In Primary this week each child was given an invitation to hand out to someone inviting them to come and see the Primary Sacrament Presentation on 24th November.  Please work with your child to ensure these are handed out to friends / family.

• There have been some changes in the Visiting Teaching routes from November.  We have tried to get around to talk to all of you but if you are unsure whether your route has changed, please speak to a member of the Presidency or Sue Kennedy who will be able to confirm.

What do you love the most?

Sara taught the lesson today on Lorenzo Snow chapter 22 and posed a question

"What do you love the most?"

 

 

President Snow had recognized a pattern that kept occurring amongst the saints of his day, no matter how spiritual the people were, the time would come that once again the world would try and creep into their lives.  It happened in the BOM, again and again, it happened to the Saints in Kirtland and sadly the world continues to become part of our lives unless we are constantly aware and staying close to the Lord.

 

 

We noted that we can tell who / what we love the most by where our thoughts are and how we spend our time.  So we each reflected on the past month and each drew a line on a graph as below where we feel our lives have been in relation to the Lord and the world:

 

 

___________________________________________________________ GOD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_________________________________________________________ WORLD

 

Then we drew a line where we would like our lives to be over the next month.  Try it - it can be quite a revealing experience, as we see what brings us close to the Lord and when we sometimes come too close to the world.

 

 

President Snow gave us the counsel "We have got to love God more than we love the world."  We looked at ways the world can enter our lives and noted some of these as:

 

Being critical of others / Comparing what we have or are to others / Doing good things but allowing them to take too much of our time

 

We then considered 4 pieces of counsel from President Snow to help us in our journey to be close to the Lord:

 

• Keep our covenants
• Build up our own righteousness - DO good things
• When temptation comes, follow Christ's example when he said 'Get thee behind me Satan' - don't play with fire or try to rationalize behaviour
• Keep an eternal perspective - this life is so very short

Sisters, is there something keeping you from being as close to the Lord as you want to be?  If so, now is the time to make the change :)



Kindness :)

 

 

Our wonderful compassionate service leader Cristina Torres sent this wonderful message from President Monson to me this week ... do you know someone who needs a little extra kindness?

Announcements and A challenge....

Fatima gave a wonderful Presidency message this morning with a challenge for ALL sisters in the Ipswich RS.

We watched Elder Ballard's wonderful talk from October General Conference where he encouraged us to help the Lord's work of salvation move forward.

The video of his talk can be found by clicking here

Elder Ballard reminded us that President Monson said 'Now is the time for members and missionaries to come together and labour in the Lord's vineyard to bring souls unto Him.'  NOW is the time Sisters, for us to play our part in this amazing work of saving souls.

He then went on to give every member a challenge:

So Sisters - do you take the challenge?  To help us on our way Fatima gave us all a Book of Mormon to take and write our testimonies in and share with someone between now and Christmas.  If you did not receive one please speak with one of the Presidency and will ensure that you do.

If you are nervous or fearful - turn to Elder Ballard's words.  Listen to His counsel and show faith.  This is the Lord's work and He will aid us in every way.


Announcements:

• The Presidency will be starting to hold stewardship interviews with each sister on a quarterly basis from now so we will be contacting each of you over the next couple of months to arrange a time to meet with you. 

• Sat 9th November at 6pm there will be a baptism of Dolores, it would be lovely to show our support in attending.

• Wed 13th November at 7.30 Kim Spencer will be leading our next food storage activity based on wheat.