FAIR's Rising Generation

Posts Tagged ‘values’

I mentioned in my last post that I’ve been trying to make things more meaningful for myself. I’m slowly learning to love and appreciate more aspects of the Gospel, and I’ve found that it’s really worth while. I can’t remember what motivated me to do this (obviously it wasn’t anything too special), but I do remember that one of the first things that popped into my head when I was thinking of things I could appreciate more was the Young Women’s Theme.

In YW’s, when we recite the Theme, we sound like an army of the undead. We speak in perfect unison with the same colorless tone, and I seriously have to wonder if any of us actually get anything out of it.

Back when I was a bright-eyed Beehive learning how to recite the Theme, my only intention was to vocally march in time with the rest of the Young women. I don’t think that (until recently) I’ve ever actually thought about what it was saying. I was either trying to be able to mindlessly quote it, or I could and did without a second thought.

A couple of years ago, I decided that I would always think about what I was saying before I said it. If I was going to call somebody a jerk, I’d have a reason to; if I was going to tell somebody that I liked their shirt, I wouldn’t be lying; and if I was going to state my stance on a political issue, I’d have some awesome reasoning behind my statement. I decided that I was going to understand and mean every word that came out of my mouth, and, if (for some reason) I didn’t, I’d do my best to correct it as soon as I could.

So this, my friends, is what I like to call reparation. I’m splitting this into three parts. The first is this one, which (along with holding my unnecessarily long introduction) will focus on everything that doesn’t have to do with the values, and my next posts will be about the values.

We are

daughters of our Heavenly Father,

who loves us and we love Him.

We will “stand as awitness of God at all time

and in all things, and in all places” (Mosiah 18:9)

as we strive to live the Young Women values, which are:

Faith

Divine Nature

Individual Worth

Knowledge

Choice and Accountability

Good Works

Integrity and

Virtue

We believe as we come to accept and act upon these values,

we will be prepared to

strengthen home and family,

make and keep sacred covenants,

receive the ordinaces of the temple,

and enjoy the blessings of exaltation.

Now, I can’t guarantee that what helped me is going to help everybody. So my advice for you is to think it through yourselves, but to get you started, here are my thoughts on the first and last paragraphs.

The first sentence is probably the most overused, mainly because the message can be found almost anywhere in the Church if you look close enough. Every aspect of life and the Gospel exists because–and is caused by the fact that–our Heavenly Father loves us. He tells us this so much and put it in the YW’s Theme so that we never forget it. Although that doesn’t always work, I think it’s better than Him pretending that he couldn’t care less about us. To say that our Heavenly Father loves us and that we love him is a very important thought which really should be understood and meant when uttered.

And what does it mean to “stand as a witness of God at all times and in all things and in all places”? It means if that guy you know who’s anti-Mormon asks you if you’re really a Mormon, you say yes. It means you say no to drugs and alcohol. It means you’ll walk out of a movie if you have to. It means you won’t buy that sleeveless shirt no matter how cute and/or on sale it is. To over-simplify it and make it seem easier than it really is, it means that you’ll follow the standards of the Church and never be afraid to admit it.

Now to skip to the last paragraph. It says to “be prepared to strengthen home and family”, which makes it sound like we’re supposed to focus mainly on our future families, which is true, but don’t let yourself forget about your present family. That is of course, to whatever degree your type of family or situation allows you to. It’s important to develop the skills and spiritual strength that will help you be the kind of wife and mother you’d be proud to be.

The rest of it talks about getting married in the temple and achieving exaltation. Although marriage may seem far off, I think it’s important to be the sort of person that you want to marry. Even though you might not be getting married any time soon, you’ll still be attracting certain crowds. If you want to date and be friends with people who have certain standards, then you have to have those same standards. You’ve probably heard the saying “you marry who you date”, well make the people you date (and the people you hang out with) the kind of people you’d want to spend the rest of your life and eternity with.

So that concludes part one. This is some of what I learned from pondering and praying about the Young Women’s Theme, and I encourage all the Young Women out there to get what they can from my words and to explore the concept further themselves. Also, for the Young Men; I don’t know much about your Theme (actually, I’ve only heard it about five times), but I’m sure you can gain a lot from it, and I also encourage you to seek to understand and mean the words you chant every Sunday.

Part 2 can be found here.
Part 3 can be found here.