Aileen H. Clyde

Second Counselor in the General Relief Society Presidency (March 31, 1990 – April 5, 1997)

General Conference Addresses

• April 1995 General Conference
  • Covenant of Love
    • “Of the many blessings that have come to me through my knowledge of Christ’s gospel, I am most grateful for the doctrine that teaches us that our lives here have eternal meaning and are for the glory of God. We are central in his great work. He teaches that as we receive his light, we can reflect that light in the world.”
    • “The love Christ commands requires a mighty change and great humility. It requires us to forsake pride and to be stripped of envy. It requires that we neither mock our sisters and brothers nor persecute anyone. Christ knew that for us to find any of those characteristics in ourselves would be onerous and would demand our great effort just to look.”
    • “We are, then, because of his great love and because of our desire to be guided by his light, part of the family of Christ. Because of our covenants, we have protection from loneliness and alienation. Because of our relationship with him, we can reflect light and tenderness to one another and we can possess our own souls eternally.”
• October 1991 General Conference
  • “Charity Suffereth Long”
    • “Good questions can be important if we are truly searching to understand, and that sometimes good answers that are good enough may take a lifetime of looking.”

Other Talks

• September 1996 General Relief Society Meeting
  • Confirmed in Faith
    • “While the Zion where all walk with God is not before us yet, the way to Zion through faith on Jesus Christ is before us. We live among evidence of the promise of the scripture that righteousness and truth are in the earth and that Christ has come to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.”
    • “We are promised, then, that we grow spiritually as we believe in the words of those who know, those whose faith has produced the capacity to endure and to move forward. Faith is power in us and gives us the ability to do.”
    • “God’s care for us has caused Him, by revelation, to provide not only the means for our salvation, but he provides for ways we can help each other meet the challenges to that salvation.”
• September 1995 General Relief Society Meeting
  • What Is Relief Society For?
    • “They approached the Prophet Joseph and asked his counsel on their desire to serve in the kingdom by organizing themselves by their plan. He said he had something better for them: an order and a purpose which required priesthood leadership so that their good desires could bear even better fruit.”
    • “When she joined the Church she turned to the Book of Mormon, too, for understanding. There she found mention of another rod, the word of God which leads one along the path to the tree of life. Then she understood that sparing this rod would certainly spoil her children. Thus, she has learned to order her home, to bring the light of the gospel, to save the souls of her children.”
• September 1994 General Relief Society Meeting
  • Charity and Learning
    • “Charity develops in us as we see ourselves moving in our lives from a “what’s in it for me” kind of love to the love of family and friends and, blessedly, beyond that to an awareness of our Lord’s unconditional love for us that tells us of our divine kinship with one another and with him. Such love, or charity, does not spring whole and steady in most lives, but it can come as we learn and grow and reach for ways to know God’s love. The scriptures are a great help to us in understanding this.”
    • “What we “ought” to do in charity for ourselves and one another sometimes comes with swift ease, but more often comes through courageous, corrected, and unselfish effort.”
    • “Our Creator meant for us to value and develop our ability to communicate with him and with each other. He expects us to use these capacities to learn righteous ways, to lift one another, and to develop our divine natures.”
• September 1993 General Relief Society Meeting
  • Relief Society: Charity, the Guiding Principle
    • “We knew that women struggling to clarify their identities could best do that not by comparing themselves to other women but by understanding their important place as full and equal partners with men in receiving, in righteousness, the saving ordinances established by Christ. We saw that men and women are baptized, are offered the gift of the Holy Ghost, partake of the sacrament, and make sacred covenants in the temples of the Church in exactly the same ways. We would not try to describe an ideal Mormon woman. We would seek instead to teach that Christ is our model and that as we are filled with his love, we are his disciples.”
    • “There is much evidence of the goodness of you women and of the principles that motivate your service and fidelity. As you seek God’s Spirit, work with priesthood leaders, use your capacity to analyze needs, and move with courage, you dignify us all. Your work blesses lives and builds God’s kingdom on earth. Relief Society teaches that exercising charity and participating fully in the blessings of the essential ordinances of the restored gospel lead us to become more like Christ.”
• September 1992 General Womens Meeting
  • Confidence through Conversion
    • “I think we live in a wonderful time, and I call it wonderful because each of us has available to us personally the knowledge we need to live confident, righteous, even happy lives. We do live, as women and men always have, in complicated, variable and sometimes abusive circumstances. But because of the restored gospel, each of us has, or has available to us, a kind of knowledge that assures our survival, even our triumphant survival of the unsettling conditions that may threaten our balance and our progress.”
    • “My whole hope in speaking to you about gospel knowledge of our individual importance to our Heavenly Father and our Savior is that it will build our confidence in our own ability to make good decisions that will help us grow spiritually.”
• Relief Society Sesquicentennial Satellite Broadcast, March 1992
  • The Mission of Relief Society
    • “Christ taught clearly that regardless of our living conditions, or our marital status, or our gender, we may know his love.”
    • “Relief Society women throughout this world have first in their purposes to know him themselves and to build their personal testimony of Christ’s love, which he so freely offers to all.”

Articles in Church Publications

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