Importance of the Young Women's Program Values and How They Support the Family

I grew up with fresh baked bread every week and I loved it. And I used to bake bread, but in recent years for some reason that didn’t continue. Until a year or so ago I got an automatic bread machine that does it all for you. It was amazing to me that you could put in the ingredients, set it, and then you have a loaf of homemade bread. I loved setting it the night before and waking up to the smell of homemade bread. Well, one night I carefully put in the ingredients and programmed it to be finished the next morning before the kids went to school. The next morning when I went to take the bread out, I got quite a surprise. Inside the pan was a warm, gooey mess. It was warm and the numbers were flashing zeros so I knew it had gone through the stages. It wasn’t until cleaning it out that I realized I had taken out the kneading blade in the center of the pan to clean it and hadn’t replaced it. So it hadn’t mixed, hadn’t kneaded, the ingredients had sat there unmixed and in layers, and had cooked.

Our purpose in the Young Women’s program is to support the family in helping the girls “Come unto Christ.” I’d like to relate this process to my bread making experience that day. There was only one thing missing, but that thing was the most important. If we compare a well raised girl to a well raised loaf of bread, what is the key ingredient that you simply can’t do without? Well, if you’re looking at the eternanal perspective, that key ingredient is her accepting Jesus Christ at the center of her life, just as the kneading blade must be placed at the center of that loaf of bread. What do you think would be the flour, the main ingredient in bread? It is not mutual, not seminary, not friends, not leaders, not even the bishop, it is the family. More and more we are learning that the family is the center, the focus and we are to be a support to them. So the young women’s program, seminary, mutual would be the other ingredients, that are also important, the salt, sugar, yeast, water, etc.

Remember the letter from the first presidency from February of this year: “The home is the basis of a righteous life and no other instrumentality can take its place or fulfill its essential functions in carrying forward this God-given responsibility.”

I would like to share some of the ways I feel the Young Women’s program is trying to do this and how it supports our families.

I was at Ricks College for Mothers week a few years ago. The speaker started his talk by asking all the females in the auditorium to stand and recite something with him. Hundreds of mothers and daughters stood, not knowing what we were to recite, but it took only two words from him (We are...) before mothers and daughters alike were reciting the Young Women Theme: We are daughters of a Heavenly Father who loves us and we love him....”. If you go to Young Women’s you recite that every week, but for some reason hearing that in a different setting from college age girls and their mothers was very humbling to me. When we sat back down he said, “You know, I’m a little jealous, I think the closest things that the men have is the Scout Oath, and that can’t even compare.

In a Regional Conference in May of this year, a member of the Young Women General Board, Sister Christine Payne Olson spoke to us. She related a story from a letter the general board had received from a Young Woman. This girl, just out of High School, was to be working at a born again Christian Camp. She knew she was the only Mormon, and that the others knew she was Mormon and didn’t think highly of her being there because they had heard some strange things and didn’t believe Mormons were Christians. She was quite nervous to be in this situation. One day one of the leaders of this camp came up to her and said, as a Mormon girl, what is it that you really believe in? She said, at first she froze and her mind went blank She was horrified to think she couldn’t even answer this question, and then suddenly into her mind came the Young Women’s theme. She changed the we’s to I’s and said this: “I am a daughter of my Heavenly Father, who loves me and I love him. I will stand as a witness of God at all times and in all things, and in all places, as I strive to live the Young Women Values, which are, Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works and Integrity. I believe as I come to accept and act upon these values, I will be prepared to make and keep sacred covenants, receive the ordinances of the temple, and enjoy the blessing of exaltation.” She said that the man was a bit speechless and then said, “Could you say all that again, I’d like some of the other leaders of the camp to hear this.” Well of course she could, she had repeated it each week for the past 7 years!

These 7 values are based on principles of the gospel, specifically for the needs of young women today. The girls know the values, they know the definitions of the values and they even know the colors of the values. (Which probably seems silly to some men but we like it, it helps us remember the values.) Sister Sharon Larsen shared this “Value color” story, as it had been shared with her by a young woman.

It was spring and a group of friends had spring fever and decided it would be much more fun to skip school and go to the beach. They had it all planned out, and met at the appropriate time to leave school. This particular young woman knew her parents were not home this day and so as she headed home to get her swimming things she knew she wouldn’t be caught. She opened her drawer, pulled out her swimming suit, her purple swimming suit, and was terribly frustrated to be reminded of the value that purple represents: Integrity. And along with that the definition, “I will have the moral courage to make my actions consistent with my knowledge of right and wrong.” She said if she had had another swimming suit in any other color, she would have been out the door, but she could not bring herself to wear purple, and be reminded all day of integrity, while she sluffed school to go to the beach.

Last year as we focused on the Proclamation of the Family, we gave each girl a copy of the proclamation and had them cross reference and color code it with their values and their theme. The values are all there, and it made a very colorful proclamation. I think we could do the same thing with the Relief Society’s new theme. Which isn’t surprising because they are all inspired, it is the gospel, and it is Truth!

In Young Women, the 4 areas we focus on are Sunday lessons, Mutual activity nights, Personal Progress, and events. Sunday lessons often focus on the family. Recently the Miamaids were surprised to go to their class and find nothing set up. Surprising because if you have ever looked in the Miamaids class you would want to stay. They always get handouts, always have treats and there is always a tablecloth and centerpiece, of course color coordinated. This day there was nothing, and no one seemed prepared to give the lesson. It turned out that the lesson was on “Being Dependable” and Jody Peters really was prepared but wanted to make a point. It was a meaningful chance for the girls to share some situations at home where they hadn’t been dependable.

Mutual activities are often family oriented. Yearly we have a father/daughter activity, and a mother/daughter activity, and a Parent/Youth dance. We hope these are a support to the family. The beehives spent a mutual night presenting a family home evening to a new, young family in our ward. They planned it themselves and we hope the experience benefitted the girls, their families and the Lotensocks who were the recipients.

The personal progress program is filled with value projects that are done with or for the family, and a parent is supposed to be involved and signing each project.

Events are New Beginnings, Young Conferences, Camps, etc. Our most recent was our Young Women in Excellence Night, where the girls presented a movie they had made called “An Adventure in Excellence” . Each girl, with their parents help had chosen a project, and the value that the project represented. The best part of the movie was being able to go into the home of each girl, hear her talk about her project , which was everything from color coding scriptures to making quilts for Kosovo, and feeling at home with her in her home.

Another event that the Laurels were able to participate in, as a reward for being current in their personal progress was last summer going with the other Laurels in the stake to Bear Lake. In the evening we sat around the cabin and each girl and leader shared something about their family that they were thankful for. Obviously, none of the girls were perfect and neither were their families, but the comments were so positive and there were very few dry eyes. We hope this was a support to the families.

We hope that the families see the program as a support to them and that all of us as parents are in agreement with President Boyd K Packer when he said, “Devotion to the family and devotion to the Church are not different and separate things.” And that if you see a need that we as leaders can help with that you will come to us for support.

In this awesome calling as a parent I am reminded of Alma, in chapter 36 when he is telling his son Helaman of his conversion. He admitted as a father to his son how he had tried to destroy the church, an angel had come and for three days couldn’t move or speak. And for many verses told how he was so tormented with the memory of his sins, how he had lead so many away from the truth, and then the part that I think is so significant: amid all these terrible memories and turmoil, which goes on for many verses, he remembered something else, he said, “I remembered also to have heard my father, he remembered something his father said, concerning the coming of one Jesus Christ, a Son of God, to atone for the sins of the world.” And then as we read on the whole feeling changes, and he said, “when I thought this, this recollection that his father had told him about Jesus Christ, he said I could remember my pains no more, and oh what joy and what marvelous light I did behold;

Just as the teachings of Alma’s father helped him find the light of Christ, and as Alma was teaching his son Helaman through his dramatic conversion story, we have a calling as parents to help bring our children to the knowledge and importance of the Savior in their lives. And as youth leaders I hope we can take seriously our responsibility to support the families in this most important calling.

(November 27, 1999)

By Sally O Meservy