Retraction

Ok - so I am about to retract my outrage {see previous post} about not having a Super Saturday to attend.
Before I do, let me give you a little background.
I love Super Saturday {or Fabulous Friday, or Terrific Tuesday, or whatever your neck of the woods wants to call it}.
I have organized a handful of them, I have taught classes at several, I have overseen a couple of them, and I have attended one every year for the past eleven years.
{I take that back. I missed one due to a wedding, and one due to giving birth - but I had still prepared, and helped prepare craft classes those years that had to be lead by someone else}. And while it's true, that I never, ever have finished every project that I signed up to do in the alotted time, I have always loved it!
There's just something about being with a group of sisters, creating, learning and eating that is extremely uplifting to me. I may come home with a few unfinished projects - but I always come home rejuvenated, ready to be a better wife, mom, visiting teacher, and friend.
In fact, I felt that President Uchtdorf's talk Happiness, Your Heritage at the General Women's Conference in October 2008 cemented the understanding of the need for women to create, in the hearts of all who heard it. It's a beautiful address. Inspiring. Uplifting. Validating.
That is why it's disappointing to me, that with the new changes in the Relief Society "Meetings", that some people would conclude that such trivial things like crafting and cooking don't make the grade anymore.
I adore and support Sis. Julie Beck, president of the General R.S. I know when she announced the name change from Enrichment to Meeting, she also said that the purpose of Relief Society is to prepare women for the blessings of eternal life by helping them increase their faith and personal righteousness, strengthen their families and homes, and serve the Lord and His children.
I get it. Those things are absolutely the goal, and are of utmost importance. I understand how some might have a difficult time meshing modgepodging and bread kneading into the category of "preparing women for the blessings of eternal life". But for me as a mom of young children - who sometimes simply needs to be away for a few hours, surrounded by good, faithful women, who are going through or have gone through what I am now, that big gap from making homemade Christmas ornaments to preparing for eternal life - is non-existant. It's one in the same.
I am without a doubt, a better person for taking the opportunity to create by attending and being involved in Enrichment activities like Super Saturday. And isn't bettering yourself a part of preparing for exaltation? I would like to declare a huge, resounding "Yes it is!"
However, I am no longer outraged. I apologize for sounding that way in my last post.
I truly understand the decision, I just don't love the decision. I suppose though, that this is just one more thing that doesn't need to be church sanctioned. Just like book club - we don't need it to be on the Relief Society calendar to be able to get together and create away.
It just makes me wonder though - why do we still have Church basketball, and volleyball and dances and pancake breakfasts, etc.? Do these things have more correlation to our preparedness for the after-life than Super Saturday? Or is it only Relief Society, to which we as sisters over the age of 18 automatically belong to, who are held to this higher standard of spirituality in our activities? Just curious.
I wonder what President Uchtdorf would think...