Auckland woman, Kirsti Lyes, shared the following message about women of faith with other members of her congregation this week. Kirsti and her family are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:
As a little girl I loved sitting on the floor in my mothers sewing room and it was there that I developed my love for textiles and haberdashery. I would fold and refold her fabric, and imagine what I could create with it, if I could sew. I loved hunting through the Milo tins full of lace and trim, I would sort and fold and organise them and tuck them safely back in their tins. But my favourite thing to do was to sort the buttons. I liked to organise them into colours and then into sizes within colours. I would pick out my favourite buttons; I was attracted to the glass buttons, the ones made of shell and of leather. It always seemed a shame to put them away once they were sorted; they seemed too beautiful to be hidden away in a tin.
My Mother learned to sew from her Mother, who was a dress maker and worked with her two sisters in their own dressmaking store. We have the most beautiful photo of my Nana’s parents, an uncommonly intimate photo for the time; they are facing each other smiling as she adjusts his tie. My Great grandparents loved each other very much and they carefully and deliberately stitched strong bonds of love and adoration into their lives and the lives of their young children. These bonds were to be tested when my great grandmother died suddenly from cancer when her youngest daughter was just one. My sweet and gentle great grandfather was broken hearted. Some years later he entered into a marriage of convenience, creating a blended family. Two children soon followed. Life was not easy, and we suspect that my step great grandmother knew that her husband couldn’t quite love her as he had his first wife. Despite these difficult circumstances I believe they did the best they could to raise their six children. Last year, the last of these children great auntie Lynn died aged 99. She and her siblings were always very close; they loved and adored each other.
I am so grateful that as a great granddaughter and despite a less than ideal marriage, unresolved grief from the loss of their first spouses, and the difficulties of raising a blended family, they chose to resolutely carry on and raise their children with love and faith and loyalty. We their posterity have benefited greatly by their trials well endured. These stitches sewn painstakingly by faithful ancestors transcend time and are stitched so deeply into the fabric of our lives that we barely notice the stitches, for they have become part of the fabric itself.
Elder Ballard said….“When you are willing to listen and learn, some of life’s most meaningful teachings come from those who have gone before you. . . . How much better your life will be if you will follow the noble example of the faithful followers of Christ”
My great Auntie Rosalie passed away last week. She was my Grandmothers sister (on Dad’s side) and despite having seventeen grandchildren of her own, she took over the role of Grandmother to the five of us when Gran died.
Elder Ballard further explains why all women have a responsibility to Mother ….I understand that some of you young women do not have mothers. And many of you women do not presently have daughters in your lives. But because all women have within their divine nature both the inherent talent and the stewardship to mother, most of what I will say applies equally to grandmothers, aunts, sisters, stepmothers, mothers-in-law, leaders, and other mentors who sometimes fill the gaps for these significant mother-daughter relationships.
Like treasured laces, trims and buttons, over this last week I have sorted through the memories I have of my auntie Rosalie, I have been amazed at just how much of who she was has been sewn into the fabric of my life.
She helped fundraise to build the Palmerston North Chapel. She learnt to make beautiful hand dipped chocolates from an American missionary sister and made and sold thousands of chocolates contributing the money to the building fund. Long after he Chapel was built she was still making chocolates, giving them away to those she loved. I remember her patiently allowing me to help her make chocolates when I was eight or nine, knowing now what an exacting task it is, I suspect most of what I so proudly produced, would have been at best factory seconds. But Auntie Rosalie never made me feel like what I was doing was inferior; she seemed thrilled that I wanted to learn what she knew.
A few years ago when her arthritic hands could no longer hand paddle the fondant; she resolved to give up chocolate making for good. Before hanging up her wooden spoon for the last time, she was anxious to know whether we would continue making chocolates. Little did she know chocolate making had been well and truly stitched into the fabric of my sister Heidi’s life and mine as well as our children’s life as well?
Auntie Rosalie was my first visiting teaching companion. I remember we visited an older less active and slightly cantankerous sister who lived out at Tangimoana beach. I was always impressed with how she managed these visits. I learnt much from her as a young visiting teacher. She had a young spirit, an honest, practical frankness, and great sense of humour.
I am so grateful that Auntie Rosalie chose to be our grandmother. Like Elder Ballard said she filled the gap. We had no living grandparents she saw the gap and filled it. When Auntie Rosalie moved to the Hawkes Bay a couple of years ago to be closer to her son, she cleared out her home and Heidi and I got among other things, her collection of buttons, what a treasure! And I got the old hand turn sewing machine that had once been her mothers.
I remember the day my mother brought her beloved Benina sewing machine. We drove into town in the old Holden Kingswood. Mum had us kids wait in the car with spare parking meter money, while she went into the store. I remember it felt like hours but finally she emerged from the store triumphant, sewing machine in hand. Mum sewed countless garments on that machine, clothes, and costumes for school plays, wedding dresses, and curtains.
I think Grandparents can add much depth and beauty in the lives of their grandchildren. A little like a garment, they are the finishing touches, the decorative stitching. Parents on the other hand have a slightly different role. Theirs is to stitch into the fabric of their children the strong foundations of righteous living. They do this through what they teach but also by how they live.
Elder Ballard said….We have a family friend who travels often with members of her extended family. Her primary observation after each trip is how much the young women behave like their mothers. If the mothers are thrifty, so are their daughters. If the mothers are modest, so are the girls. If the mothers wear flip-flops and other casual clothing to sacrament meeting, so do their daughters. Mothers, your example is extremely important to your daughters—even if they don’t acknowledge it.
Now, mothers, I understand that it sometimes appears that our children aren’t paying attention to the lessons we’re trying to teach them. Believe me—I’ve seen that glazed-over look that comes to the eyes of teenagers just when you’re coming to what you think is the best part of your instruction.
Let me assure you that even when you think your daughter is not listening to a thing you say, she is still learning from you as she watches you to see if your actions match your words. As Ralph Waldo Emerson is believed to have said, “What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say” (see Ralph Keyes, The Quote Verifier [200
I remember learning much from watching my mum. One Saturday at my brother’s soccer match, Mum noticed a derogatory statement about Mormons painted on a nearby fence surrounding the soccer field. I can’t remember what the statement said, but I do remember Mums response. On the following Monday after school she had all four of us hop on our bikes and Heidi hopped on the back of her bike, two cans of paint, one hanging from each side of her handlebars, paintbrushes in our saddlebags and off we rode to the soccer field. We painted out the derogatory statement without any fuss or fanfare, then rode home again. At the time I felt like it was no big deal, it was just what should have been done. Mum is like that, she sees something that needs doing and just gets it done. No fuss, no fan fare.
Elder Ballard said the Church will help wherever we can. We are there to support and sustain you as parents and as children. But the home is the most important place to prepare the youth of today to lead the families and the Church of tomorrow. It rests upon each one of us as mothers and fathers to do all we can to prepare our youth to be faithful, righteous men and women. It is in the home where we must teach the gospel by precept and by example.
When I learnt to sew I was taught that it was important to reverse three stitches at the beginning of a seam, this strengthens the seam by keeping the thread firmly in place. The seams would not come undone if these three small stitches were in place.
When I was little the five of us (my siblings and I) grew up in Palmerston North in a house on the banks of the Manawatu river. On my 5th birthday, 36 years ago today, Dad was called to be the District President, and a couple of years later when the district was made into a Stake, he was called as the Stake President where he served for 16 years. Dad was away a lot and there were many demands on Mum. But Dad was always attentive to our needs and made precious time available for one on one time… we never felt neglected. We never heard mum complain about the time Dad spent away from home.
However with all this in mind I think the most significant thing my parents did for us while growing up was to teach us the principles of the gospel in the home and then show us how to live these principles by their own example. These two things were in perfect harmony with what we were taught at church. Like three little stitches…teach, live and testify ….daily consistent and predictable. These three things have great power to hold in place the gospel in our lives. My parents have sewn strong gospel seams into our lives, making sure to reverse stitch at the beginning…teach, live and testify and in so doing have shown us how to sew strong seams of gospel living into the lives of our children, I am so grateful for this lesson in daily sewing.
Today is mother’s day (9th May 2010) and as previously mentioned it is also my birthday. I have reached an age where my age is not particularly important. My children call this old. I wish I had more time to spend sewing and creating things with all the beautiful fabrics, trims and buttons that I have so carefully collected and stored over the years. I have loved and collected these treasures almost out of instinct and perhaps because doing so was sewn into the fabric of my life by those who have gone before.
Time is precious and we live in perilous times so how can we reconcile the yearnings to indulge in what we love, even when the causes are good and worth while when there is just so much to be done?
Elder Ballard tells parents that all youth will be more likely to make and keep covenants if they learn how to recognize the presence and the voice of the Spirit. Teach your daughters about things of the Spirit. Point them to the scriptures. Give them experiences that will help them cherish the blessing of priesthood power in their lives. Through keeping covenants they will learn to hear the voice of the Lord and receive personal revelation. God will truly hear and answer their prayers. The Mutual theme for 2010 applies to our youth as well as to all of us: “Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest” (Joshua 1:9). This will lead them safely to the blessings of the house of the Lord.
Spending time doing the things we love often recharges us, gives us an opportunity to express our talents and blesses those around us. Being creative does this for me. We need to exercise wisdom and restraint, and not allow what we love to monopolise our time to the detriment of those we love. We need to make sure that our sewing produces tangible fruits, living covenants, ties that bind us to our families, and saving ordinances.
Elder Ballard councils us Remember, sisters, God is the source of all moral and spiritual power. We gain access to that power by entering into covenants with Him and keeping those covenants. Mothers, teach your daughters the importance of making covenants, and then show them how to keep those covenants in such a way that they will desire to live worthy to go to the temple.
Auntie Rosalie was a collector and a sewer too. A sewer of clothes as well as a sewer of people! She joined the church around the same time as her sister, my Grand mother, and begun sewing, sewing strong pioneering stitches into the lives of her children and then her grandchildren. She then turned to our ancestors and began stitching long loving binding stitches through the veil, through these stitches we feel a sense of love and connectedness between those that have past and those yet to be born, these threads run right through our hearts. These delicate threads are sensitive and are prone to tugging, tugging by the spirit of Elijah. These tuggings pull us to the Temple……Auntie Rosalie was gently tugged to the Temple.
As we farewelled Auntie Rosalie, I was reminded that we are the ones left with her collections, her buttons, her sewing machine, her things and as much as we love them and fell compelled to treasure them we cannot take them with us when we die. These things do not define who we are, they merely add enjoyment. Who we are is the sum of the things that we can take with us when we die. Our Family, our talents, our memories, our covenants, our spirit.
President Joseph F. Smith: “Our [family] associations are not exclusively intended for this life, for time, as we distinguish it from eternity. We live for time and for eternity. We form associations and relations for time and all eternity. . . . Who are there besides the Latter-day Saints who contemplate the thought that beyond the grave we will continue in the family organization? The father, the mother, the children recognizing each other . . . ? This family organization being a unit in the great and perfect organization of God’s work, and all destined to continue throughout time and eternity?” (Teachings: Joseph F. Smith,385, 386).
May God bless us to teach, nurture, and prepare one another within the walls of our homes for the great work that must be done by all of us now and in the future!
They say what goes around comes around, this is true in fashion, and it is also true in the type of sewing that bears fruit. Mothers who take time to sew loving gospel stitches into the lives of their children will see this, I should say fruit but I am going to say buttons, you will see the beautiful buttons in the lives of your children and grandchildren and generations yet to be born.
