Welcome New 8th Ward Presidency

Last night we were happy to get to know the new RS Presidency in the 8th Ward.

Here they are (from left to right...) Jill Petersen (president), Kathy Eskelson (1st counselor), Paula Hardy (2nd counselor), and Barbara Mitchell (secretary). They have been in just a short time, but already have several things planned.

One in particular that sounded fun was a "Sisters In Zion Picnic" - which is essentially a mother/daughter activity. The name has been changed to be more inclusive for all sisters in their ward. (What a great idea!)

The theme they are using this year is "The Empowered Woman" - which was instituted by the recently released presidency.

Their ward has always had the most success in their RS Meetings when sisters are given the opportunity to work on humanitarian projects.

They currently have a humanitarian committee where 3 sisters decide on projects that would be beneficial and of interest to the sisters of their ward to help with. Their bishopric often states that the 'humanitarian fund' in their ward is always generously contributed to - and they often have to come up with projects to use those donations.

One recent project they shared with us last night - which was making burial clothing for stillborn and very premature infants.

There is a real need for these items, as parents are most often not prepared for finding appropriate clothing to dress these very tiny infants in prior to their burial. It is common practice now to turn these very tiny deceased babies over to their parents - even at 16 weeks gestation. What a difficult time for parents (most often young and struggling financially), and what a relief to be offered lovingly handcrafted items as a service to them.

Shown below is the basket where sisters can bring their finished items and place them during Sunday RS Meetings.

To give you an idea of how small these are, here are some photos.

These are burial shrouds - often the infants are so small that clothing them is impossible.

These are like tiny sleeping bags or buntings where only the little face is showing

These are small gowns which are much easier to dress such a tiny baby.

The ward RS provided small doll-sized patterns.

The caps are made from ribbing, cut to length and tied with ribbon at the top.

Hard to imagine how hard it would be to prepare such a small infant for burial.

These are small pads to place beneath the baby, with a pouch to enclose absorbent material.

Lovingly crocheted afghans that are 12" square.

Items such as these can rarely be found or purchased, and if they are available - they are often expensive and costly to ship quickly enough to be used in time for a burial.

The sweet thing about this is the fact that the hands that touched these donated items before the parents, did so with much love and compassion - so different than mass production from a business.




*Update to this post (added Sept 10, 2016)

So many have requested patterns and sources for these gowns, I have added a new post with that information.  See the link to this post here:

http://riverstakereliefsociety.blogspot.com/2016/09/infant-burial-bereavement-clothing-ideas.html