Time Out for Women Update

We shared information (although not specifics) about the Time Out for Women opportunity. I wanted to give you even more information. If you click HERE, it will take you to their website so that you can register to watch the event, at your leisure, in the comfort of your own home ... FREE! Yes, FREE!! I hope we can all take advantage of this, so that they'll do this every time. What an awesome opportunity for those of us who have a hard time traveling to their wonderful events.

Love,

The Notre Dame Ward Relief Society

Just a little Reminder ...

Don't forget about our Relief Society Meeting Thursday (tomorrow) night at 6:30 p.m. We'll be meeting in the Relief Society room. If you can, please bring a plate of goodies, and an extra one, if possible, for the Veterans. We can't wait to share our wonderful and exciting event with you!! Bring someone with you too ... the more the merrier!!

Here's a little inspiration to kickstart your day with a laugh (something my FIL sent me that I thought was hilarious):

Coming this Thursday ... in Technicolor!!

Special Reminder and Invitation

Sisters,

Please click on the above picture to see the full size (at least those of us who need glasses!). Please don't forget to make the conference a priority. I promise that we will make this a morning never to forget!!

Much love,

The Notre Dame Relief Society

Happy October Sisters

I hope you were able to attend the General Relief Society Meeting on Saturday. It truly was a spiritual feast, and so inspiring. I thought of so many of you and how you exemplify the attributes that were discussed (keeping your covenants, caring and loving one another, etc.). If you were unable to attend, or would like to see it again, don't worry, you can click HERE, and see it.

Secondly, look for something special in the mail this week. I won't say more, but just know that you will receive a very special invite.

And, lastly, I have updated our Visiting Teaching page with information regarding the new month. So, please check it out. This month's theme is about keeping our covenants. Definitely a reinforcement of what we heard in the General meeting.

Have a wonderful, wonderful week. And, for a little beauty, here is a picture for to inspire you and give you a tiny hint of what's to come:

Have a wonderful week, and don't forget that this next weekend is General Conference. Don't forget to check out our upcoming events to see some of the things that are going on this month.

Much Love,

The Notre Dame Relief Society

Hello Sisters!!

Just wanted to let you know that I've updated our "Upcoming Events" page. So, be sure to check out some of the new ones so that you can put them on your calendar ... there are some great things coming up!!

Also, is there anyone in the ward who is up to babysitting? We have a sister who is looking for daycare on a continual basis.

Thank you so much!

Lorraine Dunnington
First Counselor
Notre Dame Relief Society

Oh, and here is a little beauty to brighten your day (Orange Princess Tulips):

Visiting Teaching Update

Hello Sisters!! I hope you're having a great start to September. I know it's early, but I, personally, am working on getting my Visiting Teaching started earlier in the month. So, I spent some time today looking at ideas for handouts so that as I pray for my sisters, I will know just the right message each sisters should receive.

Here is a beautiful handout that I downloaded from the link at "Spiritually Speaking." It's beautiful, and I've uploaded it for you to use, if you feel it would work for your particular sisters:

I love this quote by President Monson. Who better to inspire us, than someone who has given so much service for so many years.

I also found this handout from Spiritually Speaking, however she had downloaded it from "Say It Write." What do you think of this one?

And lastly, if you're not Chevroned out, here's a great aqua chevron handout that has 4 on one sheet, or on large one, they are from the Mormon Mommy Blog:

There were about 12 different handouts listed on Spiritually Speaking, so if these don't "speak" (forgive the pun, I couldn't help myself!) to you, then you have quite a few more options.

Good luck Sisters ... I'm so proud of you for being willing to Visit by Counting with Caring, instead of Counting with Numbers!!

Warm Regards,

Lorraine Dunnington,
1st Counselor,
Notre Dame Ward Relief Society

New Visiting Teaching Page

Ta Da ....

We now have an official Visiting Teaching page, devoted just to assisting you with your Visiting Teaching. If you'll notice at the top, there is a tab next to Home, which says Visiting Teaching. Click on that, and you'll find information about Visiting Teaching.

Please feel free to use it as a forumn to assist each other, share ideas, problems (unless they are confidential) etc. so that we can work together to live the higher law of "Caring, not Counting."

Also, for our new sisters, please note that if you feel comfortable adding your blog page to our blog links, we would love to have you send them to us to add to our page. If you do not feel comfortable, then please don't worry. It just offers us another way to get to know you and your family better, as well as for you to know us better. However, if you feel it is a little too intrusive, we definitely understand and do not ask you to do anything that does not feel comfortable.

I will continue to be adding more pages and developing this site, so if there are any Blogger Extraordinaires our there, please don't hesitate to give me some tips. I've had to have a crash course in blogs and am slowly but surely learning how to most effectively use it.

Love to all,

Sis. Lorraine Dunnington

Last Minute Reminder

Just wanted to remind all of you that tonight is the Ward Relief Society meeting at 6:30 p.m. at the church. The topic is Emergency Preparedness. Childcare will be provided. Please bring a friend and/or remind your Visiting teaching sisters. Everyone can benefit from discussing preparedness, no matter what our financial situation, circumstance in life, etc. I always think of the scripture: "If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear."

We look forward to seeing all of you!! Particularly our new sisters! We can't wait to get to know you better and help you feel "at home" as soon as possible.

Much Love,

The Notre Dame Ward Relief Society

Relief Society Activity on July 26th @ 6:30 p.m.

Sisters,

Here are a few questions for you. Let's see if we have more in common than we think:

1) Do you ever feel as though you should give more service, but don't feel like you have either the means or the time?

2) Do you wish you could go to the temple more often, but either small children, work commitments, or other circumstances preclude you from going?

3) Do you wish that you could do more geneology but most of it has been done by your family members and so you don't really feel as though you have much to contribute (I can't relate to this as my parents are converts, but I know there are some of you out there that can).

4) Do you ever feel guilty when the words "Geneology" or "Temple Attendance" come up?

5) Does the idea of leaving your home to give service give you heart palpitations because of all of the arrangements you would have to make in advance (childcare, loading up your house in a diaper bag, the cost of gas, and just the fatigue of it all?

6) Do you find yourself wasting time on Facebook (of course our page is not a waste of time, so let's get that out of your heads) or surfing blogs (and I have to cringe when I say this as I'm guilty ... surfing Pinterest) when you know that you could be doing something more productive?

Well ... we have solutions JUST FOR YOU!! We can't wait to show you how you can give service, whenever you have a few minutes of time, from the luxury of your own home! You don't even have to get dressed ... you can be in your jammies or sweats for all we care. You can do it early in the morning before your kids get up (but why you wouldn't want to snag a few zzz's is beyond me). Or you can do it late at night when your children are in bed (much more my style).

You can even do it when your children are taking a nap, or just plain being quiet.

You can do it for a few minutes during your lunch break if you have access to a computer at work and it is allowed.

It is an amazing way to serve, and it is something that everyone who has access to a computer may do.

So ... come one, come all and let Sis. Denise Kelly teach you the ins and outs of the easiest type of service since sliced bread. In fact, it is such an easy thing to do, Elder Bednar talked about youth who were setting examples for us in the amount of indexing that they were doing.

So, those of you who have youth, why not learn and then you could have a family home evening dedicated to teaching them how to give service as well?

As those of us might remember from the Life cereal commercials ... "Try it, You'll like it.!!"

Much love,

The RS Presidency of the Notre Dame Ward

A Non-RS activity Invitation

Many of you know Nadine Bailey (now in the South Bend Ward), and many of you new sisters don't. However, she has invited all who would like to participate to the following activity, so with her permission, I'm passing along the invite. This would be a great opportunity for those of you who are new, or even for those who maybe haven't done the following yet, to do so, and in the process make new friends:

Hello Friends!

Bright and early the morning of Monday, July 2, weather permitting, I am going to go to the Blueberry Ranch, an organic u-pick blueberry farm where you can pick your own blueberries (or purchase pre-picked ones). The cost is $1.85/lb (which is about 1/3 the price of buying them in the store!) It took me and four younger ones about 2 hours to pick 22 lbs of blueberries (and remember the 2-year-old and the 4-year-old ate MANY more than they picked!) It is supposed to be hot again on Monday (high of 93!) so I wanted to get out to the ranch early... so I will meet you there at 8:15 a.m.

The address and contact information for the ranch is:

54743 Buckeye Road, Mishawaka, IN 46545
Phone:(574)255-5773
http://www.blueberryranch.com

For Directions, click HERE

Oh, and some ideas for using those blueberries? Many of my friends love to freeze them. I love to make jam, fruit leather, and eat them fresh. (I, Lorraine, love to freeze them and bananas, and make fruit smoothies with them).

Also, I do plan to have a beach trip this week, most likely on Friday, July 6th. This will be my last beach trip for a few weeks as I'm heading out of town. But, don't let that stop you! If you want directions to my favorite place, Silver Beach, send me an email (nrbailey@sbcglobal.net).

Please feel free to invite others and bring them along!

Love,
Nadine

Okay, here's just a reminder about this week's Relief Society meeting ... and before we get started, I thought I'd offer a few pictures to get going (and possibly toot my own horn). I'm pretty proud of my little herb garden I have on my back porch. It's pretty and easy to saunter outside while I'm cooking and pick a few fresh herbs. As you can see, I need to take the buds off of my basil so that they will get more growth in the leaves and less in expansion. But I'm sure you'll hear more about that on Thursday evening.

First of all, the meeting will start at 6:30 p.m. Babysitting will be provided for those of you who need to bring your children. The topics will be gardening (no matter what circumstance you are in) and eating from your garden. As an aside, we'd like to offer you the opportunity of bringing your favorite recipe using fresh produce as well as a potluck dish highlighting the recipe. This is encouraged, but not mandatory.

We don't plan on having a dinner, but we would love for you to have the opportunity to taste each other's specialties and hopefully get you more excited about starting a garden. For those of you who can and cannot come, we'd really love for you to upload your recipes to either our blog or facebook page. Let's share with each other!! If you don't know how to do so, the easiest way is to make a comment and you can then enter your recipe. There is no limit (as far as I know) to the amount of recipes blogger will allow you to share. So, please share your best, I know I for one will be happy to try them, especially if they have your stamp of approval. If you can't figure out how to upload your recipe, then feel free to email it to me (lorraine.dunnington@gmail.com) and I'll post it for you.





I'm so excited about my potted tomatoes. See the first cherry tomato?!! I go outside everyday and check and make sure that it's still there. I don't know why, I guess I'm afraid the ducks and geese that waddle through my yard are going to steal my tomatoes before I get to taste them. Anyway, just another example of the "NO EXCUSE FOR FRESH PRODUCE" (how do you like my rhyming) mantra that we each should own. No matter what your circumstances, you, too, can have a little tomato on your back porch, or windowsill, even your garage or basement (with grow lights of course).

So, please, please, please, come and join us. Even if you know that you will never have a garden large enough to feed your whole family for the year, or even if you think you wouldn't even want to have a container garden of herbs in your window sill. You might, just might, feel encouraged enough to save that dying plant in the corner, or purchase a REAL plant and keep it going. You never know until you try! At the very least, we would love your company and to share our fresh foods and recipes with you.

Much love,

The Notre Dame Ward Relief Society

**Personal Ad**

Just wanted to let you know that Bro. Phil and Sis. Christine Williams are having a garage sale on Saturday (tomorrow) the 16th from 8 a.m. until around 5 p.m. They are (sadly) working on moving out of state and are in the process of culling out household items. So, please head on over if you need anything, or even if you just might like to browse for something you want instead of like.

Christine told me that she has mostly household items, but there might be some furniture for sale as well. If you can't make it to this garage sale, she thinks they might have a couple of more as they get rid of accumulated items from over the many years they've lived here.

Their address is:

20040 Darden Rd.
South Bend, Indiana 46637

Good luck to the Williams and good luck to you in finding something you might need!!

Relief Society Meeting Cancelled/Postponed

Dear Sisters,

We found out that Thursday evening the chapel will be closed as they will be installing new carpeting. Therefore, our Relief society meeting will be cancelled. Please let your visiting teaching sisters know so that no one goes to the Church in order to either watch carpeting be installed, or to be locked out of the building.

We are so sorry for this, but happy to be getting new carpeting.

Still, we'd love to have your recipes, so go ahead and post any that you'd like to.

Warm regards,

The Notre Dame Relief Society

Update, Update, Read all about it ...

Okay, here's the latest on next week's Relief Society meeting ... and before we get started, I thought I'd offer a few pictures to get your mouth watering ...

First of all, the meeting will start at 6:30 p.m. Babysitting will be provided for those of you who need to bring your children. The topics will be gardening (no matter what circumstance you are in) and eating from your garden. As an aside, we'd like to offer you the opportunity of bringing your favorite recipe using fresh produce as well as a potluck dish highlighting the recipe. This is encouraged, but not mandatory. We don't plan on having a dinner, but we would love for you to have the opportunity to taste each other's specialties and hopefully get you more excited about starting a garden. For those of you who can and cannot come, we'd really love for you to upload your recipes to either our blog or facebook page. Let's share with each other!! If you don't know how to do so, the easiest way is to make a comment and you can then enter your recipe. There is no limit (as far as I know) to the amount of recipes blogger will allow you to share. So, please share your best, I know I for one will be happy to try them, especially if they have your stamp of approval.

I'm really excited about this event, not because I love weeding a garden, or all of the dirt you get in your fingernails ruining your expensive manicure (can you tell I spent many an hour doing both?), but because of the wonderful memories I have of hot southern summers where we would eat fresh veggies from the garden for dinner and then fresh peaches with cream (from the milk we got at a local dairy). It was heaven, and made all of the work definitely worth it. Looking back, I believe that money was tight that year, but I never knew it at the time because to me we ate like kings and queens. The food tasted that good to me.

I still remember many family home evenings where we spent time together as a family working along side each other as we made our garden beautfiul, whether it was the flower beds, strawberry beds, or vegetable garden. I also remember climbing trees trying as many methods as humanly possible to keep birds away so they didn't eat our fruit - by the way ... really small netting was the only thing that worked.

I also remember the first year where my father didn't have any idea how many okra would produce in the perfect conditions we lived in and we had it growing out of ears and trying to find enough people who would eat it. Thank goodness for the ward as we would bring what seemed like bushels of okra to church on Sunday and put them outside the RS room so that people could take them home. We planned our garden to only have 1/2 a row the next year!

So, please, please, please, come and join us. Even if you know that you will never have a garden large enough to feed your whole family for the year, or even if you think you wouldn't even want to have a container garden of herbs in your window ceil. You might, just might, feel encouraged enough to save that dying plant in the corner, or purchase a REAL plant and keep it going. You never know until you try! At the very least, we would love your company and to share our fresh foods and recipes with you.

Much love,

The Notre Dame Ward Relief Society

Here's a Quote I think applies by Victor L. Brown:

"We are very much aware that we live in difficult times, perhaps as difficult as any recent period in history. The economy in general seems to be out of control; there is high unemployment in many areas. Inflation is running rampant in most countries of the world. Personal debt is staggering. It seems almost impossible for young people to buy a home. Many who have purchased a home have monthly payments which leave no room to handle the slightest emergency.

We have been taught that we should build our reserves over a period of time, that we should not go into debt to do so, that we should buy those things we use and use them on a rotation basis, that we should use common sense in preparing ourselves to be independent and self-reliant. There has never been extremism or fanaticism associated with these teachings ...

My brothers and sisters, I feel our anxieties are justified. It is the opinion of many that more difficult times lie ahead. We are deeply concerned about the welfare of our people and recognize the potential privation and suffering that will exist if each person and family does not accept the word of the Lord when he says, “Prepare every needful thing” (D&C 88:119), and “It must needs be done in mine own way” (D&C 104:16).

May I again implore you priesthood and Relief Society leaders to see that all members of the Church everywhere understand the responsibility they have for their own welfare, that our people will be blessed to live provident and righteous lives. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

Now the interesting part of this quote ... It is from October 1980 General Conference entitled "Prepare Every Needful Thing."

Visit Relief Society Sisters

Update for Relief Society Activity

Dear Sisters,

Due to conflicts for several of our committee members, the Relief Society activity scheduled for this Thurs. will be moved back one week to Thursday, May 31st.  The topics will center around gardening and eating what you grow.  And, for those of you who don't think you can garden because you don't have enough space ... this will be addressed.  So no party poopers!  We all can learn, green, brown, pink, or purple thumbs included - please don't ask me what the other colors wrought ... but I'm sure it's something interesting.

Also ... Welcome to any and all newcomers.  Please send the word out if you have already met some of our newbies so that they will know about our blog page.

Awesome Recipe

Several sisters were asking for the scrumptious grape salad that Natalie Mason made for our last Relief society meeting.  She kindly shared it with us, and here it is:

"As promised, here's the recipe for the grape salad I made last night!
1 bunch green grapes
1 bunch red seedless grapes
1 8 oz. cream cheese
1 c. Sugar
1/2 c. Sour cream
1-2 tsp. vanilla
Chopped pecans
Brown sugar
Wash the grapes and make sure they are dry. Mix the cream cheese, sugar, sour cream, and vanilla together in a large bowl. Add the grapes and get them covered in the dip. Put them in a 9 x13 pan. Top with as much brown sugar and pecans as you'd like! Better if served chilled."

Welcome to our brand spankin' new Notre Dame Ward Blog!!

Dear Sisters,

It is our prayer, desire, wish, to have a better opportunity to communicate with ALL of the sisters in our ward.  We want to create an environment where all sisters feel welcome, needed, and "in the know."  So, we will be using this avenue as one resource to:

1)  Reach out to you
2)  Allow you to reach out to others, and
3)  Allow you to have another avenue to reach out specifically to your Visiting Teaching Sisters.

While we realize that not everyone is comfortable with social networking, we know that it can be another wonderful avenue for us to become closer to each other.  With that being said, we will continue to have handouts in the pockets on the Relief Society bulletin board for any and all sisters who prefer paper information, as well as for those of you who visit sisters who either do not have access to the internet (smart phones, etc.), or prefer not to use them.

We will continue to refine, update, and learn how to implement social networking to better fulfill our mission as a Relief Society.  We would love to have your feedback, suggestions, advice, etc.  While we might not always be able to utilize all of your words of wisdom, we will prayerfully try our best to represent your needs.

With Much Love,

The Notre Dame Relief Society Presidency