THE EMPOWERMENT SERIES

President Gordon B Hinckley

Ten Gifts from the Lord
So, in my last post, I posed a question concerning my "role" as a woman in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

"I suppose that you could name attributes or those things that we do, but what is our role, or rather how can we effectively inhabit our roles as women comfortably?"

I found this "Womens Conference Talk" given by former president of the church Gordon B Hinckley in some of my files. I started to read it and I realized that  I have God's attention, and at first I thought my questions were some what  frivoulous but I  proceeded anyway.  So I am including an excerpted version of this talk, specifically 10 blessings that President Hinckley has lovingly detailed for women. Here is a link to this talk : 

http://lds.org/ensign/1985/11/ten-gifts-from-the-lord?lang=eng 

(Introduction)
Some are prone to complain that you are discriminated against. All of us rejoice in the enlargement of opportunities for women. Under the law, there are few opportunities afforded men that are not now also open to women. With this enlargement of opportunity, a few Latter-day Saint women are asking why they are not entitled to hold the priesthood. To that I can say that only the Lord, through revelation, could alter that situation. He has not done so, so it is profitless for us to speculate and worry about it. May I suggest, rather, that you dwell on the remarkable blessings that are yours, the great positive privileges of your lives as women of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the transcendent spiritual gifts that may be yours. I should like to name ten of these, with their coincident responsibilities. I shall have time to comment only briefly on each.

(BLESSINGS)
1.You have the gift, the opportunity, and the responsibility of doing good. You possess an instinctive inclination to help those in distress, and you have a peculiar and remarkable way of doing so. There are so many who need your help.
Jesus was described as one “who went about doing good” Acts 10:38. Can you, as His followers, do less? In organizing the Relief society, the Prophet Joseph Smith said concerning the women, “They will pour in oil and wine to the wounded heart of the distressed; they will dry up the tears of the orphan and make the widow’s heart to rejoice.” (History of the Church, 4:567.)

2. Prayer. Here is a great spiritual gift available to all. Every woman has as certain a right to approach the throne of deity in prayer as does any man. I am convinced that our Father in Heaven loves his daughters as much as He loves His sons and that He is as ready to hear their pleas and grant their petitions.
It is your privilege to pray in the meetings of the Church—not only in the meetings of the women’s organizations, but in the sacrament meetings when all of the saints are admonished to gather together. It is your privilege to pray in such tremendous gatherings as this.

3. It is your privilege and right to teach. You come within the province of the admonition given by the Lord:
“And I give unto you a commandment that you shall teach one another the doctrine of the kingdom.
“Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand.” (D&C 88:77–78.)
Yours, my sisters, is the privilege to teach, yours the responsibility, yours the opportunity. There are few resources of which we are in greater need than dedicated teachers of the gospel who teach with faith, with conviction, and with the knowledge that comes of study.

4. Yours is the opportunity to preside. You have heard from Sister Young, who presides over the Primary Association, with combined enrollments of 825,000. You have heard from Sister Kapp, who presides over some 300,000 young women. You have heard from Sister Winder, who presides over the Relief Society, which includes 1,682,000 women across the world.
These women have counselors. They have general boards. They have their counterparts in stakes and wards. They deal with vast responsibilities, vast resources, and large numbers of people. They are executives in the truest sense.
My dear sisters, you, as women, have tremendous executive responsibilities in this Church. And no one appreciates more than I the wonderful contributions you make and the great wisdom you bring.

5. Yours may be the spirit of prophecy. That may sound strange to some of you. Miriam in the Old Testament is spoken of as a prophetess. Peter, on the day of Pentecost, repeated the words of the prophet Joel, saying:
“And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:
“And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.” (Acts 2:17–18.)
Can anyone doubt that many women have a special intuitive sense, even a prescient understanding of things to come?

6. Yours is the opportunity to proclaim the gospel. Exclusive of missionary couples, we now have 5,872 sister missionaries serving in the field. For the most part, these are young women who are called as other missionaries are called. Many mission presidents give their sister missionaries credit for being more effective than the elders in opening doors and minds to the teaching of the gospel.
Nevertheless, you have the privilege. You have the right, conditioned upon worthiness. You have the opportunity, whether serving as full-time missionaries or on a local basis, to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ with power and conviction.

7. Women have the great opportunities of the blessings of the temple. The right to receive the temple ordinances pertains as much to women as it does to men. The blessings to be received through that experience are as great for women as they are for men….
For the woman who is married in the temple, there is afforded the opportunity for happiness and for security, for time and for all eternity, to a degree to be found in no other type of marriage. In fact, only in marriage in the house of the Lord can there be the promise of eternal companionship, conditioned, of course, upon the faithfulness of both parties to that marriage. The man cannot be exalted without the woman; neither the woman without the man. (See 1 Cor. 11:11.)
  

8. Yours is also the privilege to minister in the temples. Women do the vicarious work for women. It is as important that this work be done in behalf of those beyond the veil in the case of women as it is in the case of men. The work you so do is as acceptable to the Lord. It is necessary for the accomplishment of his purposes. It is as spiritually uplifting as is that which men do.

Furthermore, women fill very important responsibilities as ordinance workers in the temple. As surely as there is a temple president, there is also a temple matron. There must be many who assist her in carrying forward the sacred ordinance work of the House of the Lord.

9. I mention next the unique and God-given privilege of motherhood. There is no miracle in the entire world like the creation of new life. There is no responsibility greater than rearing children in “the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” (Eph. 6:4.)
Without a mother’s efforts, her pain, her family concerns and service, it goes without saying that the race would soon die. The purposes of God would be totally frustrated. Her partnership with the Almighty in bringing to pass His eternal plan is a blessing that no man can enjoy in the same sense.
I recognize, of course, that there are many within the sound of my voice who are not married and who may never be married in this life. The number of adult women who are presently unmarried constitutes approximately a third of the female members of the Church in the United States and Canada. However, this blessing is afforded two-thirds of the women of the Church. To you who are mothers, I wish to say that I know that your labors are heavy, that your burdens are many, that the task of rearing children in this complex age is a serious and demanding one. But there can be no doubt that as the years pass you will enjoy a sense of satisfaction that will come in no other way. You will enjoy a measure of peace, of love, of that gladness which is deep and sweet and good and which can come from no other source.
To you who are single parents with families to rear, I know that yours is a particularly heavy burden. We pray that the Lord will bless you and sustain you and that you will have resources to do that which must be done and to do it well. The resources of the Church can be mobilized to help you when you need help.

10. I conclude with the tenth great privilege and opportunity you have. This is the opportunity and the encouragement to educate your minds and hands, to refine your talents, and to so qualify yourself to work in the society in which you will live

Enjoy. Let me know if the link works, I  am new with this stuff.
Have a great weekend everybody



kelly rae roberts