June 17th, 2025, 12:01pm MDT
After two years of planning and prayer, Valerie Earnshaw saw that nearly 600 Relief Society members gathered in Manchester, New Hampshire on May 31 to belong to a women’s conference on the theme of “The Joy of Christ.”
Earnshaw, president of the Concord New Hampshire Stake Rescue Society, is another Stake Relief Society president in New England, looking for ways to help women feel connected to the global Relief Society, which has nearly 8 million members worldwide when they proposed to hold a women’s conference.
“We wanted people to feel the connection between the larger Relief Society group and the joy and power that comes from being truly disciples of Christ,” Earnshaw said.
Earnshaw explained that many New England wards are spread out in the distance, making gathering difficult at times.
With this challenge in mind, the President of Stake Relief Society has decided that similar events will meet the needs of current Relief Society members, reflecting the last women’s conference held in the New England region in 2019.
“We just wanted to help women create joy through inclusion,” Earnshaw said. “This place where everyone can come. Everyone can belong.”
Earnshaw embraced the role of director of the conference, and for the next two years he coordinated service projects, found speakers, and selected topics for the class with the help of seven other stocks in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts.
Services were an important part of the meeting, according to Ellen Pack, a member of the conference committee.
“At Relief Society, we work together to serve each other no matter what our situation is,” she said. “We’re really trying to be like Jesus and the pastor.”
Until the meeting, members of the Relief Society of Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont donated over 1,000 blankets to my blankets. They brought an additional 200 blankets to the meeting and were covered in the handrails of the gym where the meeting was held.
“It felt like I was surrounded by the love of every woman who made all those quilts,” Earnshaw said of the venue.
On the day of the meeting, Relief Society members assembled their homeless kits. Drawstring bag filled with items such as water bottles, socks, personal hygiene products, women’s products, sunscreen, rain ponchos, bowls, supplies and more. Each bag also held notes of love and encouragement written by one of the meeting attendees.
Pack delivered 700 assembled homeless kits to hope for NH recovery after the meeting. This service project made particularly meaningful as her youngest daughter was homeless for a while.
“This service brought us closer to God because we felt his kind mercy to us and truly felt how closely he knew our personal struggles and sorrows,” she said. “We were happy to be part of the solution for others who were in a similar situation where my daughter was.”
In addition to participating in the service project, Relief Society members chose three breakout classes out of 24 options, including finding joy through physical health, strengthening temple worship, navigating differences without competing, and finding unity of diversity.
The woman also heard from several speakers and ate lunch together.
According to Earnshaw, one of the first parts of the meeting’s planning was to choose a theme.
She said many members of the committee felt that the theme should be “the joy of Christ.”
“I think it reflects what we’ve heard from the apostles at conferences, and that speaks to the many struggles people have,” she explained.
According to Earnshaw, the committee recognized that many women were experiencing a fierce struggle in their interests. Everything from marriage issues to gloomy health checkups. Without reducing the heartache that comes from these trials, the committee wanted to show that Jesus provides joy during pain.
“People need to know that it’s not a placebo, but that’s really the answer to all the struggles we have,” Earnshaw said. “And we feel joy in Christ, not when we finish the trial. There is no trial. There is joy in Christ in the midst of trial.
