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Show W Mg hwmc nW'qj' t St-; f I Relief Society Skills Aid Hawaiian Leader MAUI, HAWAII Mrs. Rebecca Keale is well known from Maui to Lanai to Molokai. She is president of the Hawaii Extension Homemakers Council and travels from community to community in the interest of the art of homemaking. She is also the president of Maui District Relief Society. I always carry my Relief Society skills with me, she said. My learning came through the Relief Society. My extension work and Relief Society have many things in common. The purpose of both is to learn by doing. In both organizations I am working for strong families and homes. I even open my extension work with prayer. The Lord has blessed me in both of my jobs. Sister Keale and her husband have three married children and 13 grandchildren. She has been a member of the church for 30 years. My husband was a member since age eight and I worked in the Primary and Sunday School with the children, but I was not baptized. The members were always after me to join, but it wasnt until I had the same dream twice that I decided to be baptized. In the dreams, everyone that I was with went up a hill and left me behind. Ii. seemed to be a message for me. I did know that the church was true and I love church work, I have learned so much. I think it is Very important for women to be involved," Sister Keale said. j 1 i ! : - i For Sister Keale, everything in the church is exciting. She works hard and is a very organized person. For example, one large room in her home is a "project room, where all the projects she is busy with are spread out on the floor so she can start and stop her work on a minutes notice. She is up at 5 a.m. every morning, and if an idea comes to her in the night, she gets out of bed and writes it down. Tuesday is her Relief Society day. She not only attends her meeting, but also before the day ends she has done her visiting teaching. "I know that the more I give, the more the Lord will bless me, so I keep busy," she said. I have learned that people need love and so I tell our sisters to give, to have charity. I bring them into my home, where a quilt is always set up, because they need to be busy in service. That way they have something to give. The older mothers need something to do. The teacher development and the inservice lessons are a big help, and Sister Keale noted that, because the lessons are so good, attendance is increasing at both leadership meeting and Relief Society meetings. She's known from Maui to Lanai to Molokai Mrs. Rebecca Keale says she always carries her Relief Society skills with her. Quilting, making jelly and putting up fruit are still important parts of Relief Society to the sisters in Hawaii. They are all important to Sister Keale. Spiritual Experience Brings Conversion BARCELONA, SPAIN It was night, one week after Basilisa Artero was notified of the tsexpected death of her father. Sitting in her room, she pondered his death, and the death of her mother six years earlier. Memories of the many conversations she had had with her father, and the deep love they had shared, coupled with her own atheisti beliefs, brought a despondent feeling over her. She believed that her relationship with her father was ended forever. This terrible news plunged me into i the depths of despair." she said, and once more I brooded over the worthlessness of existence. Raised in the small town of Kuesca, In the province of Aragon, Spain, Basilisa Artero had seen injustices and evil committed on every hand, even by representatives of Deity. f Basilisa Artero has been member of the church since August 1968. Afriend introduced her to the gospel sS , 8CH She came to the conclusion that if religion couid permit such injustice to occur, then there could be no God. During her growing years, she shared her views with her father, and many times, father and daughter had discussed what they felt was the uselessness of the brief span of mortal years and the wrongs they saw occurring frequently. Basilisa Artero had left Spain several years previously and moved to Geneva, Switzerland, seeking better employment. She was employed in a hospital. Now, sitting in her room, brooding over her fathers death, she found herself calling out to him, Oh, father, father! Then occurred the experience which changed her life. She heard her fathers voice, I am here, daughter, but I can do nothing for you. She was stunned. Hearing her father's voice proved to her that existence had not ended for him at death. She had felt his presence and heard his voice. As she pondered this experience, she realized that as her father still existed, so also must God exist. She determined to somehow find and worship that God she had defied for so long. In the days that followed, she tried unsuccessfully to enter various church buildings operated by a popular religion in Geneva, but each time, she recalls. WRK ENDING FEBRUARY, 1974 mgpem An invisible barrier seemed to form be- - fore me at the door. f Not knowing where to turn, she con- at the sidered the 50 or 60 hospital where she was employed, and finally decided to confide her experiences to Mrs. Jean Jacccud. Mrs. Jaccoud told her, I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-da- y Saints, and I believe I can help you find the answers." Soon, Basilisa Artero was living at the Jaccoud home and learning of the gospel from the missionaries. She began reading the Book of Mormon. It was like a thirst that I felt, and I couid hardly wait for the day to end so that I couid pick up the book again. Sister Artero was baptized in Geneva Aug. 31, 1968. Then, in 1970, she returned to Spain, going to visit her brother in Barcelona. There, two missionaries who had spent the morning prosclyling but were a out to stop for lunch, felt impressed to knock on just one more door." They found Sister Artero at her brothers home, - ; ; , Zx',. Her contact with the' church cstab- lished, she moved to Barcelona and is now active there. She was sealed to her parents in the Swiss Temple, and she is now Relief Society president In the Barcelona Branch. . . |