TOFW - Virginia Pearce

One of the many wonderful things about TOFW was that the majority of the speakers

three of the five, were single women.

To be fair one was male but he is married.

Sister Virginia Hinckley Pearce was widowed 18 months-ish ago.

I always think of widows and widowers as still married

and I think Sister Pearce would think so too.

Sister Pearce is just the loveliest and gentlest lady.

I reckon she is also strong enough to handle many things

not in the least losing her husband rather rapidly.

She is right,

in spite of many of the tragedies that we face,

our lives are good.

We can be happy in almost all circumstances.

I don't want to test that theory so

I'm going to believe Sister Pearce.

She also talked about women who are her mothers.

Her first and actual mother is Marjorie Pay Hinckley

who was everyone's mother for a time as

the wife of President Hinckley.

Sister Hinckley was a glass half to overflowing kind of person.

Her positive, make the most of life attitude

carried her through her eventful life.

I loved the story of when Sister Hinckley finished high school and went to enrol in University

only to come home to her father's news that his business had gone bust.

It was 1929*. 
Young Marjorie went back the next day to deregister and
got herself a job to help support her family.

She worked for 10 years in the same office job

and her response to her lost educational opportunity?

She said she had to educate herself so she did by reading everything that was uplifting and admirable.

When she and President Hinckley were finally to marry,

long courtship had preceded,

President Hinckley met her for lunch to explain they needed to delay their wedding

as he only earned $125 a month and had only $150 in savings.

Sister Hinckley's response was not only did she get a wonderful man but he had $150 savings!

"Be kind.  Everyone you meet is facing something diffcult."
Sister Hinckley

Sister Pearce, who is a therapist had a friend not named "Jane"

whose children as they became adults and two of them left the Church.

Being a fallible woman she blamed herself,

examining her every parenting step

then her husband's obvious failures and

wound herself up helping no one.

Sister Pearce kept up with the play.

Jane decided to make a commitment to attend the Temple very, very regularly

with the idea that by making a noble sacrifice her children would be moved to return to Church.

10 years on, Jane is still attending the Temple like dedicated and enlightened clockwork

and the change she has to report on is her.

Jane has grown and blossomed and become the woman she needs to be.

Her kids? 

They haven't come back to Church but they have a lot of respect for Jane

and her dedicated attendance. 

As an example of a good woman,

Jane has been just that for her children.

Probably for lots of reasons as well as her Temple attendance.

Sister Pearce's third mother is the venerable and very much dead

Eliza R Snow.

Hence the grey scale photo.

Sister Pearce started by talking about Sister Snow's conversion to the Gospel.

Like a sensible and independent woman,

she wasn't convinced by other people's testimonies.

She took her time and turned to Heavenly Father to seek confirmation of the truthfulness of the Gospel.

Cause that's what we do, y'know us Mormons.

If it's going to be it's up to me.

Eliza has an amazing record of service to the people of the Church,

serving in Relief Society and recording history, writing hymns and

a million other things.

Including being a polygamous wife,

which really just means she had the luxury of doing lots of things

other than keeping house,

cause another wife did that.

Score!

"The Spirit bore witness to me of the truth .... My heart was fixed."
Sister Eliza R Snow

The fourth and final mother of Sister Pearce was

Sister Julie B Beck

who is the current General Relief Society President

aka head honcho of all the Relief Societies but they are all really one.

Yeah I know I didn't know who the President was either

but I think I live in a cave sometimes.

I can't remember what Sister Pearce said about Sister Beck's mothering role in her life

but that doesn't matter too much cause this post is long enough

and I'm tired.

"Am I aligned with the Lord's vision of me?"
Sister Julie B Beck



At least our Relief Society Presidents now smile in their photos.

* Because I am constantly amazed at the lack of historical knowledge I will just say 1929 was the start of The Great Depression.  It went for about 10 years and really only ended because of World War II - Phew!