What Really Matters, According to Me

At the kitchen table after supper, my 14-year-old daughter sat writing an essay for an English assignment. She asked me several questions and we talked quite a bit about her topic: Bully Awareness Day. When all of her questions were asked, I began to ask questions of her: Why do we have such a problem with bullying? Can it be stopped? Why should we try? Why do we care about violence in the hallways and classrooms? Not only that, but why should we care if kids (and adults for that matter), take drugs? Why should we care if there are kids overdosing in the bathroom at school? Why do we try to stop people from committing suicide, anyway? Isn’t that their choice? Why not say “Toughen up, or KYS?” Why don’t we adopt more of a survival of the fittest attitude? Why NOT many things? After a moment of silent reflection, I looked into the searching, almost wounded eyes of my girl and told her that we, as a people, are haunted by the ghost of some truth we used to know. Like a stirring in our he...

Through my past 5 years of young women's I have learned and experienced many things, things that have shaped me and continue to shape me into the women I have become, and will become. I've learned the importance of studying your scriptures, serving others, and practicing skills that I would and will use in my future life and family. I look out at all the young women here and see the beautiful potential that you all have. You all have so much power within you that will only grow stronger. Through my years of completing tasks of personal progress, little by little. I have learned that I have power within me too, little by little. Faith, divine nature, individual worth, knowledge, choice and accountability, good works, integrity, virtue are only SOME of the divine attributes you will learn to acquire as you complete your personal progress. In a talk By Elder John C. Pingree Jr. Of the Seventy called “I have a work for thee” he says “The Lord has more in mind for you than you ...