This week my young women are at girl's camp. Well they're supposed to be, but most of my girl's are not interested so we actually only sent an investigator to camp. So sad that she didn't have better examples from our ward, but she's having an awesome time. Last night the YW ward Presidents were asked to come up and do a spirit hike with the young women. I was able to convince two of my Laurel's to come up with us just for the night. We were each assigned a value, and we were to share a testimony building experience we had with that value. Then we were to challenge the YW to commit to building their testimony of that value and to put a pine cone in our fire if they agreed.
I got Virtue. For those of you who do not know yet, Virtue is the new and 8th YW's value. It was introduced in December. The project for Virtue is to read the Book of Mormon. Because of the way the hike was set up, I was only able to hear one other leader's experience. She spoke about Divine Nature and gave the YW an awesome challenge to gain a better understanding of their Divine Nature. She used the song, "What Heaven Sees in You" as her experience.
I shared with the YW my experience with gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon. I prayed and wrote my answer in my journal. My answer was that the people in the Book of Mormon really lived, that I should live by what they taught, and that the church was true. It happened when I was 14 and had finally finished reading it. It took me 6 years! I told them that this experience is one I rely on when I am tempted to live contray to the gospel teachings, or when it just seems easier to live a different life style then an LDS lifestyle. I told them I couldn't tell them what answer they would receive, because it would be personal between them and Heavenly Father, but that if they took the time to read and study the Book of Mormon, and then take Moroni's challenge and pray to know if it is true, that they would have an experience that will help them.
I wish I could have heard the other challenges, because I want to follow up with my Young Women on them. Hopefully they remember what they are when I see them next week and ask them.
Being with these Young Women and at camp reminded me of how grateful I am so have grown up in Moses Lake where the church members are so strong. We had awesome leaders, all of us did, no matter what ward we were in. But we all had awesome parents who knew the Gospel and also taught it to us. We have a lot of work to do in our ward.
5 comments:
Being YW pres down here makes me grateful for the YW leaders and friends I had back home too. It's hard when they don't want to go. I had a few here not want to go to camp either. It's hard, especially when you know all the great spiritual stuff they'll miss out on. Still, I think the most important thing is making sure the girls HAVE a testimony and they know we're there for them. I bet you rock! YW is fun though, isn't it? I'm loving it.
I'm also grateful for the wonderful leaders I had growing up. Girls camp is a great experience. It makes me sad to hear about those who choose not to participate. Sounds like you had a really good time.
I'm glad I had wonderful leaders too who made sure I knew I was loved and cared for. I know it's a challenge but keep with it you are an awesome person with a lot of love and knowledge to share. I'm sure you are reaching more people than you realize and even if you helped one girl out you made a difference.
I think about this all the time. How blessed we were to grow up in a community where the church was so strong and we could all lean on each other and our awesome yw leaders. I bet it's hard to see some of those girls not have the same experiences, but I'm sure you are influencing them for good Melissa! You just have to keep working on them. How lucky for them to have you as their leader.
Just starting to "stalk" everyone's FB info and collecting blogs!!!! Everytime I find one, Jason laughs at me because I yell "get out"...he now knows I've found a new blog!
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