1 Year Anniversary

One year ago today I was called to serve as my ward's Young Women president. I really can't believe it's been an entire year. I suppose after a year I would have hoped that I would feel like I really had a handle on this calling...perhaps more like a profesh, if you will;), but that is far from the truth. I still feel like I have so much yet to learn...that I am so far from where I should be in the realm of Young Women presidents. Doubts have crept into my mind so often of "why me?" when I know about a zillion other girls who I feel like could do such a better job than me.

Last month after Young Women in Excellence, I got some peace on the matter. I wrote a talk alone in my room for the event, that I know I really did not write alone. After the program I just had this sweet feeling...an assurance that I wasn't so bad at this calling. Of course I can do better, but that will always be true. More than that, I had a feeling come to my mind that the most important thing I can do as a Young Women leader is to help the girls have good feelings and excitement when they think about coming to church on mutual nights and Sundays, and most importantly, to help them discover & nurture their own individual testimonies of the Savior, Jesus Christ, and the restored Gospel. Ultimately, the greatest desire is that those good feelings and the testimony will lead them to the temple to make sacred covenants with Heavenly Father and to be married there so they may start their own eternal families.

We can love everyone freely & easily when we have the love of God in our hearts, because we see everyone as children of our Father, and therefore our brothers and sisters. But it's more to truly love someone on a personal and individual level. It's on top of that first kind of love. It's deeper and more meaningful. And I can say with all of my heart that I love each of my girls so much...on that deeper level. And what Heavenly Father reminded me of that day is that they love me too. There are few things that make my heart happier than when I walk into the Young Women room and they all give me hugs. I just love these girls! I want so much for them to reach their divine potential. They are such good girls. Some of them don't come from homes where there is much support of Gospel principles. But they keep trying. And so must I. There is much to do, still.

A few weeks before Young Women in Excellence, I was listening to an EFY track on my iPod with the line "And though I'm just a girl..." when that line came on, the Spirit whispered to my heart: "There is no such thing as just a girl." As the Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley said "when you save a girl, you save generations."







There is no such thing as just a girl.