Fourteenth Branch Relief Society President

 

One Sunday morning in August 1973, I had all the Atkinson family coming for dinner. That wasn’t a big thing, but I felt impressed to stay home and not go to Sunday School, I thought it odd at the time, because usually I went to church and had a big crowd come and it wasn’t a problem. This Sunday I felt impressed to say home. There I was in Levis with my hair in curlers, when Dale Steiner knocked on the door. He asked if I was Randy’s Sutton’s mother. When I answered yes he said he needed a Relief Society President for the Fourteenth Branch Relief Society. He said he didn’t know me but he knew that the mother of Randy Sutton would be a good President. Randy was Seminary President for Madison High School and Dale was in charge of the seminary program. I thought that was one of the nicest compliments a mother could ever have. I laughingly said, “The Lord told me to stay home, but he didn’t tell me to put on a dress or comb my hair.”

This was a fantastic experience. I didn’t know where to start or what to do. I did a lot of praying. My counselors were college girls whom I had never met but there were excellent. We held our meetings in the Seminary building. I had 144 girls I was responsible for. Since I had never had a daughter of my own that was a learning experience. We had wonderful programs. We had homemaking days on Saturday right at the apartment complex so it wouldn’t take too much of the girls time. One day we taught them to make bread, one time Chester Nelson gave me all the wealthy apples I could pick and each apartment cooked something with the apples and we ate the results. We made two quilts. I got so I could step inside an apartment and tell if the girls were living as they should or if they had problems. With six girls to an apartment, there were challenges. I know it was the Holy Ghost.

A Stake President’s daughter, from California told me she had been forced to go to church all her life and now that she was here, she wasn’t going to church any more. I would go to see her each Sunday morning, during Sunday School and she would look guilty and her boyfriend would leave. I bore my testimony regularly and secretly hoped she wouldn’t come back, after Christmas. After Christmas, she was totally different and never missed a meeting. Later when she sent me a wedding announcement, she thanked me and said I was the one who changed her life. I never knew what I did. The girls who were married in the Temple all sent wedding announcements but those who weren’t didn’t.

This job required many trips to Rexburg and a lot of time and all day Sunday.  Jess was good and always came to Sacrament Meeting with me in town.  In fact Jess was always good to support me no matter what I was working at.