Announcements and Lesson - 23 February 2014

Announcements:

Peter Talbot-Ashby's funeral will be this Thursday.  The service will be at the Ipswich chapel at 10.30am, followed by the burial at 12.00pm in Hadleigh, and then food will be served at the Hintlesham and Chattisham Community Centre from 12.45pm.  The ward have been invited to attend all three parts of the funeral.  A reminder that it will be family flowers only.  Anyone who wishes to make a donation can pass this to the funeral directors for RNLI or St Elizabeths Hospice.

If any sisters would like to help with the food for the funeral and hasn't yet been asked, please speak to Kim Spencer who can confirm what else is needed. - Thank you.

A big thank you to all those who are assisting with taking Trish Read home from the hospital each day. Norman is beginning to do a little better and they very much appreciate all the help they are receiving.

Please note we are now into the last week of February - please make every effort to visit your VT Sisters and report back to the presidency how these sisters are.

Lesson:

What a wonderful Sunday we had for our Ward Conference and what a treat to hear from our Stake Leaders.

President Simon Fagg, our Stake President, said as he had prayed about the upcoming ward conferences he knew that he needed to be in the RS meetings with the sisters and wanted to share how much he loves the sisters and all they do to aid in building the kingdom and families of the stake.

Sister Shirley Allen (2nd counsellor in the Stake RS Presidency) then taught us from Elder Ballard's talk in Octobers General Conference - Put your trust in the Lord.

We talked about the joy of being a member of the Lord's church and how now more than ever there is a need for each of us to share this wonderful message with those around us.  President Spencer W Kimball said "Perhaps the greatest reason for missionary work is to give the world its chance to hear and accept the gospel"  - just as each of us has been able to do.

There are so many ways to share the gospel now - especially with the use of the internet and social media but still there remains 2 main barriers which tend to stand in our way.  We shared what we thought they might be and found we agreed with Elder Ballard:

1. The first one is fear.  Many members do not even pray for opportunities to share the gospel, fearing they might receive divine promptings to do something they think they are not capable of doing.

2. The second reason is misunderstanding of what missionary work is. 

However we shared thoughts about how these can be overcome, including our faith that the Lord will help us know what to say in the moment and also the idea of simply putting down breadcrumbs as we talk and allow those around us to pick them up and know the Lord will help the conversation to happen. 

Elder Ballard assures us "It is impossible for us to fail when we do our best when we are on the Lord's errand."

If you would like to listen to Elder Ballard's talk in full just click HERE