The theme this year for the youth in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is Doctrine and Covenants 87:8:

“Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come; for behold, it cometh quickly, saith the Lord. Amen.”

Shawna Edwards, songwriter and young women leader in her stake, wrote a song called “Stand” to celebrate this theme, to invite young women to reflect on what it can mean to stand in holy places, and to testify that God’s grace is real.

She writes:

I’ve been thinking about holy places for a long time — where they are, and what they are. To begin with, members of the Mormon Church revere their TEMPLES as the holiest places on earth – literally God’s house, where we come out of the world to learn of Him and make covenants with Him. Our homes can also be holy places, and our churches, of course. But the concept of a holy place isn’t merely geographical. It can be an event, an action, or even a feeling. James E. Faust has said, “Holiness is the strength of the soul.”

Of course, JESUS CHRIST was and is our ultimate example of holiness, but there are many other examples in the scriptures of people doing simple, yet holy things that had profound consequences.

What are some of your holy places? What simple things help bring you closer to God? How have you seen others stand in holy places? How have you seen or felt the reality of God’s grace and power? 

Share your thoughts at Shawna’s website and she’ll send you a free MP3 of the song.

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A new Young Women General Presidency was called today in the General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

President – Bonnie Lee Green Oscarson

1^st Counselor – Carol Louise Foley McConkie

2^nd Counselor – Evelyn Neill Foote Marriott

You can read a little about each of these women at the LDS Newsroom site.

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The General Young Women meeting was broadcast last night from the Conference Center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Audio archives are already available for dozens of languages, and video archives are available for some languages.

The English video is embedded below. All available languages can be found here (or have been linked below for your convenience.)

American Sign Language (ASL)

Avañe’ẽ (Guarani)  

Aymar Aru (Aymara)  

Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)  

Cebuano (Cebuano) 

Diné bizaad (Navajo)  

Eesti (Estonian)

English (English)

Español (Spanish)

Faka-Tonga (Tongan) 

Fosun Chuuk (Chuukese)  

Français (French)

Gagana Samoa (Samoan) 

Hindi, Fiji (Hindi)  

Hmoob (Hmong)  

Hrvatski (Croatian)  

Kahs Kosrae (Kosraean)  

Kajin Majōl (Marshallese)  

Kiswahili (Swahili)  

Kreyòl Ayisyen (Haitian Creole)  

Lingála (Lingala)  

Mahsen en Pohnpei (Pohnpeian)  

Malagasy (Malagasy)  

Nederlands (Dutch)  

Paluan (Palauan)  

Papiamento (Papiamento)  

Português (Portuguese)

Portuguese (Portugal)  

Reo Tahiti (Tahitian)  

Română (Romanian)  

Slovenčina (Slovak)  

Slovenščina (Slovenian)  

Tagalog (Tagalog) 

Thin Nu Wa’ab (Yapese)  

Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)  

Vosa vakaviti (Fijian)  

Български (Bulgarian)  

Монгол (Mongolian)  

Русский (Russian) 

Српски (Serbian)  

Українська (Ukrainian) 

Հայերեն (Armenian) 

العربية (Arabic)  

አማርኛ (Amharic)  

தமிழ் (Tamil)  

සිංහල (Sinhala)  

ภาษาไทย (Thai)  

ພາສາລາວ (Laotian)  

ភាសាខ្មែរ (Cambodian)  

한국어 (Korean) 

國語 (Mandarin) 

廣東話 (Cantonese) 

日本語 (Japanese) 

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~by Michelle

The video above shows highlights from the 2010 General Young Women Meeting, including counsel from general (world) Church leaders and thoughts from Mormon young women.

The General Young Women Meeting is held every year at the end of March. Young women around the world gather to receive instruction from the general leaders of the Young Women program, as well as a member of the First Presidency. (Find broadcast information for the General Young Women Meeting.) These leaders teach in ways that reflect their love for the youth, their concern for the young people’s well-being, and their knowledge of the kinds of challenges the youth face. They teach truths that make a significant difference in the lives of youth (and their parents and leaders) when they are lived.

I’m excited that next year, I get to begin going to these meetings with my daughter!

I’ve enjoyed sharing messages from these meetings with my children. This video from last year’s General Young Women Meeting, called Be Strong: I Know Who I Am, is a favorite. The music moves me to the core. There is nothing I want more for my children than for them to have the peace and strength that comes from knowing who they are: beloved children of God.

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Elder Ronald A. Rasband recently gave a CES Fireside talk entitled, “Thy Friends Do Stand By Thee,” to the single young adults of the Church (these are really great for people of all ages and stages of life). You can find audio and video archives here. (The archives currently include translations into Spanish, Portuguese, and French.) A transcript of Elder Rasband’s talk will be available soon at the CES firesides home page, where you can also find Elder Neil A. Anderson’s talk from January, entitled “Preparing for Your Spiritual Destiny” (and past years’ talks as well).

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The General Young Women Meeting is coming in a week.  The theme is “Be Strong and of a Good Courage.” This meeting is for young women ages 12-18, and their mothers as well. A live internet feed will be available at the link provided.

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The Church’s Semi-annual General Conference is also coming up. It will be held on April 3-4. Live streams will be available here.

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That weekend of General Conference, the Church History Department will hold an open house called “Treasures of the Collection” at the new Church History Library.  Hours will be on Friday, April 2, from 5:00-9:00 p.m. and Saturday, April 3, from noon-2:00 p.m. and 4:00-9:00 p.m. For more information, see here and here.

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Articles of Faith #13
[I] believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, [I] may say that [I] follow the admonition of Paul—[I] believe all things, [I] hope all things, [I] have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, [I] seek after these things.

I have had a hard time for the past few years. Life events have stretched my hope and strength nearly to the breaking point. This Article of Faith has been on my mind a lot during this time. In particular, I have been thinking of what virtue means to me.

To me, virtue is something that keeps you standing tall, even if you feel tattered, ragged and besmirched with mud thrown from misunderstanding hands. It is an inner loveliness that surmounts all other forms and measures of beauty. It incorporates integrity, faith, duty, dedication, the Spirit of God, seeking everything praiseworthy, and all the things mentioned in this Article of Faith.

More than anything, I think it is the power derived from all these things.

Several times in scripture, the word “virtue” is used almost interchangeably with “power.” When the woman touched Jesus’s hem, He perceived that the virtue had gone out of Him—that some sort of power had gone from Him to her, healing her. In The Book of Mormon, in the book of Alma, they “try the virtue of the word of God“—preaching had more power than any other source of power they knew to change the hearts of men.

In one final example, Joseph Smith, the prophet through whom the Church was restored, tries to teach us how God’s power, the priesthood, is channeled; it comes through virtue and living according to virtuous principles.

I believe these principles apply to accessing the power of God in our individual lives. There is no true power except that which is gained through integrity, faith, and pure charity.

I am slowly being taught by the Spirit that by doing my best to follow God’s will, to live true to my faith in Him and my covenants, despite my failings, I can have access to the Savior’s virtue, and thus become, through His grace, more virtuous in my life. I can become changed — purified, sanctified, and eventually exalted.

Interestingly, I feel the struggles and pain I have been experiencing are helping me understand the virtue and power of God more. I am grateful for that. I am seeking to draw upon that power for hope and strength to face my trials, and to become better.

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My name is Amanda and I am an LDS woman. I have been married to Bryan for ten years and we have three children – a boy who is 8, a girl who is 6, and another boy who is 4. I was born and raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My mother is an active member of the Church and showed her testimony and faith to us by taking five children to church meetings each week by herself.  Her doing this showed me how important the church is to her. My father is a baptized member of the church but doesn’t attend church. He always supported my mother in bringing us to church and would help to get us ready, but he never attended with us. It would have been much easier for my mother, I suspect, to stay home and not bother. I am so grateful to her that she didn’t take the easy road.

I was raised in Utah, where almost everyone (then) was a member of the LDS church. We went to church with our friends and neighbors. I loved being with so many people that shared my beliefs and standards. It was a safe place for me. When Bryan and I had been married for eight years, we moved from Utah to Oregon. Here, we are not surrounded by members, and that has been a hard adjustment for me. I miss going to church with my neighbors, but I have enjoyed branching out and meeting people from all walks of life. It has given me the chance to really show people what is important to us as well.

When I find myself with down time, I love to read and watch movies. I get nightmares easily though so nothing too scary! I spend time reading every single day. I also play volleyball in a league with other women each week. I love the physical activity and it gives me a breather from my regular life that I need. I am a crafty person, so I do some quilting and scrapbooking. I am not a perfectionist though so my quilts are always far from perfect. And that’s okay with me.

I am a stay-at-home mother – a homemaker. I enjoy it. Sometimes I find myself wishing that we had more money and I consider trying to find an outside job. I am a trained hairstylist and I miss regularly doing other people’s hair. I find that I when I am considering finding a job, the Lord reminds me why it is important for me to be in the home with my children. I enjoy taking care of them and being there for them. It is good for me, and I find that I am constantly learning new things about my “job.”

In church, my calling right now is Provident Living [preparedness] Specialist. I am new at the calling and I am not really yet sure what it means. I hope to help the women in my ward to build a three-month supply, [see this article as well], to learn to garden and be self-reliant, to use food storage, and to know how to budget and be responsible with money. We’ll also focus on exercise, nutrition and emotional and social health. I am also on the RS meeting [formerly Enrichment] committee, which is where a group of us plan midweek activities for the benefit of the ward Relief Society sisters.

In a former calling a few years ago, I was serving in the Young Women organization of the ward I was in. Our stake president [who oversees about 10 local congregations (wards/branches) issued a challenge for the youth to read the entire Book of Mormon over a summer. It meant reading a lot of pages each week to finish in the amount of time presented. I didn’t feel like I could issue a challenge to the young women in my group and not do this myself. Before this time I had not read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover, because when I study scriptures, I tend to research a specific topic that I want to know more about. Over the course of the summer, I was able to develop the discipline that I needed to read the book in such a short amount of time. I was able to have a greater understanding of verses that beforehand I would have found confusing. I was also able to feel the truth of the book – I now know without a doubt that the Book of Mormon is scripture; another account of the Savior, a companion to the Bible. And I know this to my core.

I love being a LDS woman because I love knowing that I am part of a worldwide sisterhood. I love knowing that there are many people out there that believe what I believe, that understand and can help me. I love that I know that I can be with my family forever if I make the right choices here. I love going to church and feeling that spiritual uplift that encourages me through another week. I know the reason I am on earth, and I know where I am going when my life is done. I know that the Lord loves me.
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For more portraits of Mormon Women, please click here.

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This is Jennifer, and she is a Mormon woman — a woman who has had a significant impact on my life.

I first met Jennifer when I was a mousy 12-year-old, beginning the adventure called junior high school. Jennifer was my P.E. [physical education] teacher.

To help you understand one reason why she had such an influence on me, it might help to know a little about me. I wasn’t a typical teenager, especially not at first. I was socially backward, a bit of a tomboy, and more interested in studying and sports than in boys or clothes. If you were to read my “All About Me” journal from that stage in my life, my answer to the question “I like to spend most of my time thinking about….” was:

“Basketball.”

So, naturally, my P.E. teacher would be high on the list of people who might be able to impact my life. And Jennifer did. She was a young, dynamic, energetic teacher. I liked her enough as a teacher to sign up for her Spanish class as an eighth grader. She was as much fun there as she was in the gym. I got involved as a line caller for the volleyball team and I tried out and made the basketball team in the eighth and ninth grades. (Yes, you guessed it, she was the coach.)

I grew up in an area where there were many Mormons around, so it was not unusual for her to talk in Spanish class about her mission in Chile. I knew from the get-go that she was passionate about the Church, about her mission, about life, about people. She joined the Church when she was 17, and is the only Mormon in her family. [We’ll be featuring her conversion story on a later date.]

Junior high was a very difficult time for me, and being involved with sports was one of my saving graces. Having a teacher and coach like Jennifer made a difference. She believed in me. She encouraged me. It sounds cliché, but she was someone I could look up to. And she has lived up to that admiration.

We have kept in touch over the years. After I moved onto high school, Jennifer chose to change careers; she opened an office as an insurance agent and has built an incredibly successful business. She has fun maintaining contact with past students by helping them with their insurance needs. (We get birthday cards from her every year!)

Jennifer loves to golf. She loves to travel with friends and family. One of her favorite pastimes combines her love of travel and her love of sports: she set the goal to attend baseball games in all the stadiums in the United States!

Jennifer is 51 and has never married. This is what she says about being single in a church that highly values marriage and family:

“People have often said of me, ‘you have such a great attitude about being single.’ I usually reply, ‘What other options do I have?’ Life is too short and too full of opportunities to cry in your cup. The happiest single women I know are the ones who live their lives to the fullest, and THEN if the opportunity to marry comes along, they have already a rich life to share.

“When I was 18, and had been in the Church for just one year, I received my “Patriarchal Blessing,” which is a little like a “road map” to life, setting out our challenges, blessings in life. I was at the time “waiting” for “my missionary” whom I planned to marry, who would be home in 10 months. I listened as the Patriarch [the person who gives the blessing, or better said, gives voice to the blessing] said, ‘You will be sealed to a worthy young man in the temple, and share the glorious blessings of the priesthood’ (so far so good). Then he said, ‘be prepared to face disappointment and discouragement before you make your choice.’ Well, you could have knocked me right off that folding chair!  That certainly didn’t meet the requirements of the path that I had planned for my life! But now, 33 years later, that blessing has been one of the greatest sources of comfort I’ve ever had. When a romance doesn’t work out, I always think, ‘that’s okay, this too must all be part of the plan.’ I guess that’s why I’ve always had ‘such a good attitude’ about being single. (But He’d better be saving a really good one for me!!)  🙂 ”

It’s easy to see that one of the characteristics that I most admire in Jennifer is her trust in the Lord.

I have also, over the years, watched with admiration how she has devoted much time to her callings [church responsibilities] serving in the Young Women’s organization [for young women ages 12-18] in various capacities, including as a president. She has also served as a Primary president. She has taught Sunday School for the adults (called Gospel Doctrine). In her many callings, she has had numerous opportunity to work closely with — and even to teach! — priesthood leaders. We had an interaction about the fact that some people think that Mormon women are somehow second-class citizens, or less valued because they are not ordained to the priesthood. She had this to say in response:

“I am in awe of all that the Mormon men in my life do to help me. Some would say I am naïve, but I have served as a Primary president and a Young Women president, under two different bishops [congregation leaders], who continually asked “what can we do to help you?” Not to mention being a Gospel Doctrine teacher twice and having to teach in front of seminary teachers, institute teachers, stake presidents and a mission president, who have never made me feel any less than a brilliant gospel scholar.”

She also talks about some of the blessings that came through the years as she gave her heart to service. In particular, she reflects on the years she spent serving in the Young Women’s organization:

“I made dozens of friends with the women I served with, with the mothers of the young women I taught, and even with those young women themselves who are now in their 30s. I was so busy serving that I didn’t realize the Lord, without my noticing, had sent so many women into my life, whom I now consider my eternal friends. In giving, I got so much more back. I feel like it all comes down to: ‘You get what you give.'”

We talk sometimes in the Church about how all women can be mothers — nurturers — even if they are not raising children of their own. Jennifer exemplifies that kind of nurturing influence — with former students, with friends’ children, with the young women and children she has served, with missionaries who are serving (she’s an avid missionary writer).

A personal example comes from when I was serving a mission. When I arrived in South America, I was both excited and scared. I realized quickly that I had a long way to go before being able to fully understand and communicate. I could tell it was going to be a hard adjustment.

To my surprise and delight, Jennifer had planned ahead enough to get an aerogram mailed before I had even left the United States. Hers was the first letter I received. (If I recall correctly, it was waiting for me when I arrived in the country.) I still have that letter. Her words of encouragement and testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel still echo in my mind, still mean so much. I shared those words with my mom a few years ago when she was embarking on a three-year mission with my dad to a foreign language mission (speaking a language she didn’t know).

There are many other things I could share about Jennifer, but time and space won’t allow it for now. I look forward to letting her share more of herself at a later time. But suffice it to say that to me, Jennifer exemplifies so much of what Mormon womanhood is all about. She lives a life of confidence. She loves life, even as she acknowledges its challenges. She knows who she is. She knows that God loves her and that He is aware of her and involved in her life. She faces trials (including decades of chronic health struggles) and disappointments with faith and perseverance — and with a balanced blend of realism and humor. She has dedicated much of her time to serving others. I count it a blessing to call her my friend and a dear sister in the gospel.

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Last night I was reminded in a literal way what I find beautiful about gathering together with my sisters in Zion. Although I have an aversion to crowds, when my ward announced we had some tickets for the Young Women General Meeting I snagged some for my daughter and made arrangements to go up with some other mothers and sisters in our ward.

Enjoy this beautiful essay by Dalene about her experience attending the General Young Women’s Meeting in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City last Saturday night. This essay captures much about the power of gathering, about the beauty of sisterhood, and about our gratitude for a living prophet, and a little about what General Conference means to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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