'Family Is Important'

The week-long family week celebration of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) as inspired by its theme: "Confronting Family Poverty and Social Exclusion" was concluded yesterday.

The success of the said activities could be attributed as being obedient to LDS Church leaders' advice "to support the government's initiative to strengthen the Filipino family."

"Strengthening family ties, communication and values within the family is important in reducing cases of violence among family members," likewise the local news said.

Thus this year's Family Week Celebration is aligned with the principles of the LDS Church Welfare Plan:

This year's celebration of National Family Week coincided with the 75th anniversary of the Church Welfare Plan of self-reliance and service.

Earlier, however, President Henry B. Eyring of the First Presidency counseled as the members prepare for their day of service.

Eyring said in a statement: "With 2011 being our Jubilee year, all our projects will bear the seal of our jubilee celebration. The service projects we will plan for Family Week will reflect the jubilee theme found in Moses 7:18 -- "And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness' and there was no poor among."

It is pointed out this Church Welfare  plan and the Family Week theme that aim to confront and eventually eliminate poverty, are the ways to achieve that goal: having one heart and one mind. Reaching out to the poor and the needy in their communities will be their application of the wonderful things they learned during the preparation and actual celebration of their jubilee. The prophet Brigham Young emphasized the importance of putting our faith in action. When he realized that a handcart company was still out in the plains during the winter in 1856, he counseled the saints to organize a rescue team immediately. He declared that we must "attend... to those things which we call temporal, ... otherwise your faith will be in vain."

The "Mormon Helping Hands" designation helps identify the Church's role in the activity: to provide service laborers and usually not good or materials. It also provides organized opportunities for Church members to give their time and talents to bless those in need.

The LDS Church conducted the following activities and resources:

Adopt-A-Barangay: helping families to help them become self-reliant by teaching them how to assemble 72-hour kits.

School-based symposium on self-reliance: a school-base version of adopt-a-school, which discussed on disaster preparedness and school emergency evaluation plan.

Family Home Evening Campaign: families shared their programs with their neighbors and friends by inviting them to a family home evening where welfare and self-reliance and plan can be shared.

Welfare Workshop Sessions: holding firesides or workshops on various welfare principles and directly inviting barangays and other organizations to participate. This was held in the chapel or in a community center.

Locally in La Carlota Philippines District, President Mario Malacaman was able to implement a school-based symposium on self-reliance. More than 70 members wearing the "Mormon Helping Hands" chaleco visited the Cubay Elementary School which this writer is the school principal. Parents, teachers and pupils benefited from the lecture on disaster preparedness, demonstration on 72-hour kits and portable heating unit like stove-in-a-can.

Brgy. Cubay Punong Barangay Noel Vargas and Kagawad Roger Mendoza, committee chairman on education gave their full support. While the parents was represented by their parent-teacher association president Eric Bajala.

On the following day, a parade on the main thoroughfares of La Carlota was all-out joined by the members coming from different branches like San Enrique, Ayungon, Masville, Manggapsang, La Castellana, Moises Padilla and La Carlota first and second.

After the parade, Agriculture resource speaker Eva de la Cruz lectured on organic farming, and there's a lecture also in swine raising and fattening. (A bloodletting was simultaneously conducted, and Only 13 members donated blood to the Negros Occidental Red Cross.)

More "Mormon helping hands" activities are expected next year.

"Faith without work is dead."