Subscribe Via Email!

For you readers who do not have a Feed Reader like Google, you can now subscribe through your email! Enter your email in the top left hand box and now Grapevine updates will be sent straight to you!

Welcome LDS Blogs and A Soft Answer

Welcome new readers!

The Grapevine was featured and listed today at Mormon-Blogs.com, as well as at A Soft Answer. Two very well known websites that showcase collections of LDS blogs.

Personal Touch Interview with Daryll Jonnson

Rebecca Cressman, radio and television host interviewed Daryll Jonnson, founder of LDSWA. The interview expands the purpose behind LDSWA, articles in Latter-Day Woman, and how the diversity of LDSWA brings women together in love and friendship, creating a common bond.

Also, part III of Daryll's interview with Bella Online is up.

Both of these interviews can be found here.

BellaOnline Interviews LDSWA Founder Daryll Jonnson

BellaOnline's LDS editor C.S. Bezas took some time to interview LDSWA's founder Daryll Jonnson. Part II of that interview has recently posted to their website. To read parts 1 & 2 of this in depth interview, check out the Media tab on LDSWA.com, or click here. Read as Daryll talks about the concept of the LDSWA, the purpose behind Latter-Day Woman Magazine, and what the future holds for the LDS Women's Alliance!

Check Out YomYow!

Have you seen YomYow.com yet? It's the new great and safe virtual community created just for the youth. Connect with others that share the same values and standards all around the world!

Just like Our Ladies Room is built for the needs and interests of women, YomYow.com has groups, forums, and a great community where teenagers can talk about school, church, music or anything else they have an interest in!

Encourage your teens to check out YomYow.com, the safe alternative to virutal communities!

WAR AGAINST WOMEN - WOMEN OF STRENGTH FOUNDATION

THIS IS HOW OUR WOMEN OF STRENGTH FOUNDATION IS MAKING A DIFFERENCE TO OUR SISTERS WHO SOMETIMES GET FORGOTTEN.

OUR THANKS GO TO ALL THOSE WHO HAVE PURCHASED A PRODUCT FROM US THROUGH THE COLLECTION THAT HAS ENABLED US TO HELP.

PLEASE WATCH THIS PROGRAM OR RECORD IT TO WATCH ANOTHER DAY TO SEE AND KNOW YOU TRULY DO HAVE INCREDIBLE INFLUENCE TO HELP ANOTHER. 

Media Alert

60 Minutes – re-airing “War Against Women”
Sunday, August 17
7:00pm ET

Dear Ldswa,

CNN's Anderson Cooper will be highlighting the plight of women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the CBS news magazine, 60 Minutes, this Sunday.
 
This is a re-airing of the piece televised in January and included a visit to Women for Women International’s offices in the DR Congo. The program will be broadcast at 7:00 pm ET on Sunday, August 17. Please check your local listings for 60 Minutes air times.

In the piece, Anderson Cooper shared the struggles of all the women we serve in the DR Congo.  Specifically, he met with Lucienne, a Women for Women International program participant.
Lucienne was held captive, tortured, abandoned by her family, and gave birth to the child of her rapist. Her story is bleak, but she is picking up the pieces of her life with the help of Women for Women International and her sponsor, Deborah.  In the interview Lucienne told Anderson Cooper that she named her child Luck. “I named her Luck because I went through many hardships. I could have been killed in the forest, but I got my life back. I have hope.”


After the segment initially aired, many of you wrote to us to tell us how moved you were. We invite you to bring together your friends and family to share with them the work you support and to watch the 60 Minutes piece.

Every day Women for Women International staff in the 8 countries where we work see women with a story like Lucienne’s -- women standing in line waiting for their chance to reclaim their lives. They deserve the chance to change their lives and have their stories told. Your support makes that possible and we are eternally grateful.


In fact, at the end of the piece, you’ll see how Lucienne is speaking in front of other members of her Women for Women group.  She is lit up with hope and enthusiasm…because she is reading a letter from her sponsor.

On behalf of the women we serve,
 



Trish Tobin
Women for Women International, Chief Marketing Officer

Meet Your Sister – Emilia Aku Okolo

We are humbled and honored to introduce you to Emilia. She is our first sister that we have been able to sponsor through our Women of Strength Foundation. Emilia lives in Nigeria where she raises her two children, a boy and a girl. The boy is currently unable to attend school due to lack of funds.

Because of a local tradition and lack of birth records, Emilia is unable to produce any documents with her exact age but Women for Women International have estimated her birth year to be 1985, making her around 23 years old.

She and her children live in a room with no electricity or water. They use a gas lamp and water from a river. She is currently working in an agricultural area. She completed primary education, but due to losing family members to war and violence, she faces the obstacles of caring for her children with a lack of education, skills and proper capital.

We thank those of you who have purchased products through The Spirit of You Collection since we launched. A percentage of everything that you buy go towards sponsoring women like Emilia. Every month we make sure that these women are able to develop vocational skills, improve their economic situation
and gain more self confidence usually lost due to horrific and degrading circumstances. It is our long term goal to sponsor a new woman every day of the year and ask that you continue to help us in this quest, especially when doing your Christmas shopping.

Getting to know your sister can be one of the greatest rewards as letters and notes are an excellent source and inspiration for them. Do not underestimate the power of a little note – they do make a difference! It takes on average 3 months for your letters to reach Emilia. Letters are translated for her.

If you would like a note from you included in the package I am sending on behalf of the LDSWA, please email Daryll@ldswa.com and I will make sure they are mailed to her. Tell her about your life, your family, your hobbies, where you live, everyday events, birthdays, holidays, your job. Ask her about her community, her everyday life, holidays specific to her country.

We hope you will be full of gratitude for the blessings in our lives that we sometimes take for granted and remember that no matter where we are from or what background we have – we are all connected through our hearts.

Thank you again for those who have given hope to Emilia and know we shall do so for many more wonderful and extraordinary women.

Subscribe to The Grapevine

Greetings! The LDSWA is growing so quickly it's amazing to sit back and watch. If you haven't seen the new improvements to Our Ladies Room, head over now and look at all the great new features! The Grapevine is in the process of changing and adding new features as well. One of those features is already up.

Look to the right of the page at the top of the sidebar.

 

This is an RSS Feed. If you click the icon, you can subscribe to The Grapevine, and whenever we update the blog, you will be notified. There are many ways to be notified, mostly through Feed Readers. One of the best examples of a Feed Reader is Google Reader. A Feed Reader is helpful because if you read multiple blogs (like The Grapevine) you don't have to check back every single day to see if we've been updated.

If you have any questions, please email me at Jia@ldswa.com

The LDSWA is growing so quickly and abundantly in numbers of great women across the world! Beautiful spirits from many nations, gathered together to share their hearts, souls, and testimonies with one another, to grow as sisters in Zion, wherever we may be. Within this rapid growth, talented women have offered their expertise in various fields in the first edition of Latter-Day Woman Magazine, a magazine designed just for you! Many others have made Our Ladies Room their own, building friendships, offering advice and sharing their life experiences with one another. Community Coordinators are rising and many others through different mediums are offering to help the cause of building LDSWA, to make it a home where women regardless of background, through the changing seasons of their lives can come together around the world and share a common bond.

One such person is Jia Woodruff. From the day Jia joined us as a member of the LDSWA she has daily been giving of her sweet heart to others through Our Ladies Room. Her current personal blogging talents did not go unnoticed and we are thrilled and excited to announce that Jia has agreed to join us and help bring some life to The Grapevine, our LDSWA blog. We want to make sure that you are updated on the latest information going on in LDSWA and from today Jia is going to take on that role. Thank you Jia and welcome to the LDSWA Team. Over to you Jia…………..

I want to take a moment to personally thank Daryll Jonnson who has put years of work into creating this amazing environment for us all, and it's a beautiful place where I've already made great friends, and watched as others have begun creating what are obviously lifelong bonds of friendship and sisterhood. Thank you Daryll.

There is always a story behind a name, and mine is one of great trials and blessings. After losing my mother to a car accident, I was raised by my Grandmother and whichever aunt could take us in. Though I grew up in Salt Lake City, it took me leaving Utah to find the gospel, and find it I did! In the little city of Rio Rancho, New Mexico. A rebel of a teenager, I fell in love with a rebel of a boy who was raised by dear LDS parents who insisted that I come to Church with them. In their house, I listened to Missionaries, as did my sweet Matthew and during those months spent together, we both found the basis of a strong testimony. I was baptised in January 2000, 2 months after the death of my Grandmother, who asked me to take care of our family, marry Mathew, and to join the Church of the Lord. Everything comes full circle in my life, and eventually I was taken back to Salt Lake City, where I was sealed to my childhood love for time and all eternity, and we now live in the home where those Missionaries came to teach me, with his parents and our 4 dogs. My career is to be a housewife and to take care of my family, but when I'm not doing that, I am a writer, blogger, and Sunday School teacher.

Because I feel so strongly about the gospel, I intend not only on doing my part to share it, but to also help my sisters in all that they do, in any way that I can. I find myself blessed to have already spoken with many of you in Our Ladies Room, and I am equally blessed and excited to be working on The Grapevine. This is your place, and if you have any ideas or suggestions, make it known, and feel free to email me at Jia@ldswa.com


God Bless . . .

Jia

LATTER-DAY WOMAN MAGAZINE LAUNCHES TODAY

Our first edition of our magazine designed for today's LDS Woman launches today. Within hours we have been receiving kudos and comments from our readers. We cannot express enough how happy we are that you are loving it. This is just the beginning of something special. Congratulations team - we did it!