Sheri Dew tells of visiting a ward in Oregon and at the conclusion of Sacrament Meeting a woman approached her and asked: “Are you the woman I think you are?” Her question referred to her identity, but Sheri Dew said the question has haunted her and it is a question you and I, sisters, could ask ourselves. “Am I the woman I think I am? Am I the woman I want to be? More importantly, Am I the woman the Savior needs me to be?
Who is the Latter-day Saint Woman of today?
Sheri Dew also tells about meeting with President Hinckley and in response to a question he asked her she said, “I love getting out with the women of the Church. They are so good.” At that he immediately corrected her. No, Sheri, They aren’t good. They are great?
So what makes the Latter-day Saint woman great?
I concur with President Hinckley, I am forever grateful for the great leaders and teachers I have had over the years in Relief Society especially in my early marriage years when I had so much to learn about marriage, motherhood, and homemaking. They were the example to me of who I wanted to become. They taught me things I couldn’t learn in college and things my own mother was too far, far away to teach me. And I am still learning from my Relief Society sisters.
So who is this Latter-day Saint woman and what makes her so great and what is her role in the church and in the world?
President Heber J Grant said, “Without the devotion and absolute testimony of the living God in the hearts of our mothers, this Church would die.”
Elder James E. Talmage of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles stated that “The world’s greatest champion of woman and womanhood is Jesus the Christ. Elder Russell Ballard said, “I believe that. The first time the Lord acknowledged himself to be Christ, it was to a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. He taught her About living water and proclaimed, simply “I am He, And it was Martha to whom he proclaimed. “I am the resurrection, and the life.. and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
Then during His greatest agony as He hung on the cross, The Savior reached out to one person—His mother ,when in that terrible but glorious moment He asked John the Beloved to care for her as though she were his own.
Elder Ballard also said Of this you may be certain: “The Lord especially loves righteous women—women who are not only faithful and filled with faith, women who are optimistic and cheerful because they know who they are and where they are going, women who are striving to live and serve as women of God.
Is this what makes a Latter-day Saint woman great—her testimony, her faith, her righteousness, her optimism and knowledge of who she is?
There are those who suggest, Elder Ballard said, that males are favored of the Lord because they are ordained to hold the priesthood. Anyone who believes this does not understand the great plan of happiness. The premortal and mortal natures of men and women were specified by God Himself, and it is simply not within His character to diminish the roles and responsibilities of any of His children.
Jan Marie Petersen had a shocking experience while serving a mission in Florida. One woman literally screamed the two missionaries off her front porch after they had introduced themselves, furious that they represented, in her words, “a church of male dictators where women cower in kitchens—mindless slaves to their husbands.” “Her words appalled me,” Jan Marie says. “They were so far from describing the many talented, confident Latter-day Saint women I had grown up admiring.” “Contrary to the world’s conception of the ‘place’ of a woman in LDS society, our places are as diverse as we are—our possibilities for achievement are as endless and exciting as our dreams.
President Joseph Fielding Smith explained, “The Lord offers to his daughters every spiritual gift and blessing that can be obtained by his sons (Apr 1970) All of us, men and women alike, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and are entitled to personal revelation. We may all take upon us the Lord’s name, become sons and daughters of Christ, partake of the ordinances of the temple from which we emerge endowed with power, receive the fullness of the gospel, and achieve exaltation in the celestial kingdom. These spiritual blessings are available to men and women alike, according to their faithfulness and their effort to receive them.
We know that the basic doctrinal purpose for the Creation of the earth is to provide for God’s spirit children the continuation of the process of exaltation and eternal life. Yet, some people in the world do not understand that.
In Luftkin, Texas, Marsha Ault, who was eight months pregnant, was shopping with her husband and four children. She endured the curious, disapproving, and pitying stares of several of the store’s patrons before a woman approached her and asked, “Don’t you believe in birth control?”
The question sent Marsha and her children to the car, leaving Marsha’s husband to check out the groceries. Marsha began to cry, and her children asked what was wrong. “I tried to explain that many people nowadays feel it is wrong to have more than one or two children, and that people seemed to think I was very foolish to be having another child. “Then my five-year-old daughter, Ginger, said innocently, ‘Mama, we can duck down!” Marsha said she had never felt so small.
When I read this story the other day I had a really good cry and I don’t cry often. It touched me so much how willing Ginger was to just disappear just so her mother wouldn’t feel badly. And of course, her Mom didn’t feel badly about the children at all…we know that.
The Church’s proclamation on the family confirms that God has not revoked or changed the commandment to multiply and replenish the earth. Is this what makes the Latter-day Saint woman great, her willingness to be a Mom?
This doctrine does cause some women to ask: “Is a woman’s value dependent exclusively upon her role as a wife and mother? The answer is simple, an obvious: No!
Although there is nothing a woman can do that has more far-reaching eternal impact than to rear her children to walk in righteousness, motherhood and marital status are not the only measures of a woman’s worth. Every righteous woman has a significant role to play in the onward march of the kingdom of God. We cannot fulfill our mission as A Church without the inspired insight and support of women.
Elder Ballard went on to say; “For that reason I am concerned bout what I see happening with some of our young women. Satan would have you dress, talk, and behave in unnatural and destructive ways in your relationships with young men. The adversary is having great success distorting attitudes about gender and roles and about families and individual worth. He is the author of mass confusion about the value, the role, the contribution, and the unique nature of women. Today’s popular culture which is preached by every form of media from movies to the internet, celebrates the sexy, sassy, socially aggressive woman. These distortions are seeping into the thinking of some of our own women.”
The other day when I drove to Susanville my country station became static and I switched to the Catholic station. The discussion was on abortion, the after morning pill and unwed mothers. A young man called in and said, “ I wish you would tell the girls not to dress the way they do. I wish they would dress so that we wanted to look at their face and talk to them and get acquainted with them and find out if they are someone we really want to know and be with.” Instead of having our eyes drawn to their bodies and think other thoughts. The commentator made the observation that a community will have the morals of what the women have. That men will rise to meet the morals of the women.
I was telling this to my daughter and she said her son said the very same thing. They passed a group of girls dressed in the low and midriff t shirts and low hipped,short shorts and he said, “I wish girls wouldn’t dress that way.”
When I was working in Texas I was amazed at the strict dress code they had. Not that we had to dress in expensive suits, nothing like that. It was just no tight capris, t- shirts, low necked blouses, etc. This was a work place and there was to be no distractions in that way. And yet anything goes in our schools.
It was refreshing for me to hear this young man’s call and know it is not just LDS that are asking for better dress standards amongst our women.
Is this what makes a Latter-day Saint women great? That she dresses modestly?
President Dieter Uchtdorf repeats somewhat what Jan Marie Petersen said when he said “Because women’s potential for good is so great and their gifts so diverse, women may find themselves in roles that vary with their circumstances in life. Some women, in fact, must fill many roles simultaneously. For this reason, Latter-day Saint women are encouraged to acquire an education and training that will qualify them both for homemaking and raising a righteous family and for earning a living outside the home if the occasion requires.
The 70’s were a time of Woman’s lib but this is not why I was working fulltime in the 80s and it is not why most of my friends were now working. We had to work. Times had changed, interest rates were in the upper teens, businesses were failing, foreclosures were rampant. My husband was busy saving his investment clients and the business had to change. I had to come out of my comfort zone after 20 years of being a stay at home Mom and learn a new business that was forming—that of being a mortgage broker to the big banks—and it changed my life forever. This is what Elder Uchtdorf was talking about
“earning a living outside the home if the occasion requires.”
In the early 80’s I attended a Woman’s Week at BYU-Idaho (wasn’t called that then) my oldest daughter was attending school there and I remembered in particular three of the talks that were given.
One was from a white haired older gentleman and he told the women they needed to stay home and raise their children and not go out of the home to work. A younger Church leader recognized that many women were having to work outside the home and encouraged them in their efforts to sustain their family and marriage and work and do it all acceptable to the Lord. A third speaker reminded the young women that all their happiness could not be dependent on that one prince charming they were looking for to marry. They needed to become women who were happy with themselves and educated and prepared in a career of their choice in case they would be needed to sustain themselves.
Elder James E Faust said in speaking to women— You should work very hard to prepare for your future by gaining some marketable skills. However, it does not mean that women should be the same as men or try to do things the way men do them. Although some jobs that are traditionally masculine are now being done by women, it is possible for them to be done in a feminine way and yet be done equally as—or even better.
For the most part I have been treated with respect in the workplace but occasionally I have met some men who try to intimidate women.
When I was working in Hurricane Katrina one of my leaders had a lower payscale than mine and my friend Karen. It really bothered him and he was so rude to us. One day after he came to my desk and talked to me, I could stand it no longer. I stood up, walked over to him and pointed my finger and said. “Don’t you ever speak to me that way again.”—And he never did. As women we need to express which boundaries will not be crossed.
I remember when I was making copies one day in the office and I could hear a discussion by two secretaries on the other side of the screen. They were discussing the way the husband was treating one of them. One secretary said, “Janet would never let Richard treat her that way? And the mistreated secretary said, “Yes, but Janet is her own person?”—
Heellooo---Yes, sisters we are our own person—We are Latter day Saint women who know who we are, where we came from and where we are going and what we have to do to get there. We will not be able to fill all the roles of our life at the same time but we can do things sequentially—filling roles one at a time at different times We are definitely our own person—daughters of God, women of faith with a mission.
President Spencer W Kimball in speaking of the roles of men and women said. “our roles and assignments differ. These are eternal differences—with women being given many tremendous responsibilities of motherhood and sisterhood and men being given the tremendous responsibilities of fatherhood and the priesthood—but the man is not without the woman nor the woman without the man in the Lord.
Remember, in the world before we came here, faithful women were given certain assignments while faithful men were foreordained to certain priesthood tasks. While we do not now remember the particulars, this does not alter the glorious reality of what we once agreed to. You are accountable for those things which long ago were expected of you just as are those we sustain as prophets and apostles!
This leaves much to be done by way of parallel personal development—for both men and women.”
A recent book sent to me about Mormon Women featured a Humanitarian, a Jewelry designer and business owner, a teacher, a City manager, a historian, a public health administrator, a mystery novelist, a sign language instructor, a fashion designer, a chief justice, a poet. And certainly the arts are filled with Latter-day Saint actresses, dancers, writers. There is no “Molly Mormon”—that is a myth. We all agreed to come to this earth and complete our commitments but we all came with separate assignments and separate gifts and we are all unique.. Elder James S Faust said to him “Greatness” is becoming an individual of significant worth and a person of virtue so that your contributions are maintained in both human and eternal terms.
Elder Ballard expressed it this way:
I have been drawn to an interchange between God the Father and His eldest and Only Begotten Son, who is the ultimate example of living up to one’s premortal promises. When God asked who would come to earth to prepare a way for all mankind to be saved and strengthened and blessed, it was Jesus Christ who said, simply, “Here am I, send me” (Abr. 3:27).
Just as the Savior stepped forward to fulfill His divine responsibilities, we have the challenge and responsibility to do likewise. If you are wondering if you make a difference to the Lord, imagine the impact when you make commitments such as the following:
“Father, if You need a woman to rear children in righteousness, here am I, send me.”
“If You need a woman who will shun vulgarity and dress modestly and speak with dignity and show the world how joyous it is to keep the commandments, here am I, send me.”
“If You need a woman who can resist the alluring temptations of the world by keeping her eyes fixed on eternity, here am I, send me.”
“If You need a woman of faithful steadiness, here am I, send me.”
Between now and the day the Lord comes again, He needs women in every family, in every ward, in every community, in every nation who will step forward in righteousness and say by their words and their actions, “Here am I, send me.”
My question is, “Will you be one of those women?
Now, I know most of you want to. But how will you do it? How, in a world filled with deceptive messages about women and the family—and the significance of both to the Lord—will you constantly respond to the Lord, “Here am I, send me”?
For those who really want to live up to who you are, for those who want to see through Satan’s deceptions and who at all costs want to repent if necessary, I have two suggestions:
First, listen to and follow those whom we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators.
Second, learn to hear the voice of the Spirit, or the voice of the Lord as communicated by the power of the Holy Ghost.
In November 2000, President Hinckley spoke to youth in a Churchwide fireside (see “A Prophet’s Counsel and Prayer for Youth,” Liahona, April 2001, 30–41). Have you young adults studied his message and identified things you need to avoid or do differently? I know a 17-year-old who just prior to the prophet’s talk had pierced her ears a second time.
She came home from the fireside, took off the second set of earrings, and said to her parents, “If President Hinckley says we should wear only one set of earrings, that’s good enough for me.”
Wearing two pairs of earrings may or may not have eternal consequences for this young woman, but her willingness to obey the prophet will. And if she will obey him now, on something relatively simple, how much easier it will be to follow him when greater issues are at stake.
I make you a promise. It is a simple one, but it is true. If you will listen to the living prophet and the apostles and heed our counsel, you will not go astray.
If you want to avoid the snares of Satan, if you need direction when the choices in front of you are puzzling and perplexing, learn to hear the voice of the Lord as communicated through the Holy Ghost. And then, of course, do what it tells you to do.
“Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good” (Alma 37:37
Who is the Latter Day Saint Woman today and what makes her great and what is her role?—She is a woman who can hear and responds to the voice of the Lord, She is a woman who at all costs will defend and protect her family. She is a woman who rejoices in her womanhood and has a spiritual confirmation of her identity, her value, and her eternal destiny. She is a woman of faith who follows a Prophet. And above all She is a woman who will stand up for truth and righteousness and simply say, “Lord, here am I, send me.”
None of us are perfected yet, we are all striving and often fall short of being the women the Savior needs us to be. Most of us will never do great things. But we can do small things in a great way. It has been said that “The smart learn from themselves and experience, but the wise learn from others.” I feel that is what we do as Latter-day Saint women—we learn from one another and there is a line from Martin Luther that applies to us today—he said “The kingdom of God is like a besieged city surrounded on all sides…Each of us has a place on the wall to defend and no one can stand where another stands, but nothing prevents us from calling encouragement to one another.” We are so blessed to not only have the gospel in our lives and the voices of the prophets to teach us but great Latter-day Saint women who continually encourage us to become the women the Savior needs us to be. For this I am very thankful and I say this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen
Janet Hardy, Nov 8, 2009
