- Relief Society General President Camille Johnson visited Eurasia for church meetings.
- She highlighted humanitarian efforts in Kazakhstan and wheelchair distribution in Georgia.
- Johnson emphasized collaboration between the church NGOs and governments for effective aid.
SALT LAKE CITY — As women with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints celebrate the 184th anniversary of the Relief Society on March 17, President Camille Johnson talked exclusively with KSL after recently returning from church and humanitarian meetings in Eurasia.
President Johnson recently returned from an eight-day mission to Eurasia. As Relief Society general president, she traveled to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and to the country of Georgia.
"Those are places where there are not many members of the church. That adds a layer of interesting dynamic to those members who live in some of the places, particularly Kyrgyzstan, where the church is not organized," she said. "The faithfulness of these saints, their tenacity in staying united even though political boundaries and situations separate them, they found a way to be united in Jesus Christ."
During this trip, President Johnson represented the church's humanitarian efforts. In Kazakhstan, the focus was on neonatal resuscitation, helping newborns breathe immediately after birth. As she knelt and reached out to the babies, President Johnson gently spoke.
"I met with a group of neonatologists, women doctors, who are taking materials that the church is providing and seeing that they're distributed throughout the country. Without us, it wouldn't happen, and they were so clear in saying that," President Johnson said. "I went into a children's hospital where these premature babies were in incubators with monitoring equipment, because the church had provided it. They would not otherwise have that opportunity to keep those babies going without the equipment that had been provided by the church."
In the country of Georgia, the church works with an NGO, a nonprofit organization, to make wheelchairs that fit each person's needs.
President Johnson said that the church provided nearly all the wheelchairs in Georgia, nearly 10,000, and is working with a group called Women of Georgia.
"We order the wheelchairs, and we get the wheelchairs in the right size delivered there. The women of Georgia and the church get those wheelchairs assembled, and then they're delivered personally to the person," she said.
President Johnson talked about the importance of the church's work with nonprofit organizations and how we need to all work together to help others.
"This is a beautiful example of how the church works with an NGO, in this case, the women of Georgia who was working with the municipalities or government. One of the three of us can't do it all. The church can't do it all, these NGOs can't do it all, and government can't do it all. But when the three work together, our efforts grow exponentially."
She and her presidency marked the Relief Society's 184th anniversary with a worldwide broadcast released this week.
They each spoke, as did Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
In her message, she told the women that she understands we live in difficult times.
"I'm not going to tell my sisters that it's going to be easy because it's not. The sisters that I talk to all over the world are doing pretty incredible things that are challenging and hard. But I know that when we overtake to do hard things with Jesus Christ, those hard times become holy seasons and we can become holy women."
