To the Young Women

I gave this speech to the Young Women in my church during a special evening all about them. Enjoy.

We talk a lot about the YW values and doing Personal Progress. We recite the Young Womens Theme every Sunday. This theme tells us what the YW values are:

Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works, and Integrity.

And it also tells us what we can expect to gain from accepting and acting on these values:

Being able to strengthen home and family,
Being prepared to make sacred covenants and keep them,
Being prepared to enter the temple and receive temple ordinances,
And being able to enjoy the blessings of exaltation.

Tonight I wanted to take it a little different direction and talk a about what the underlying purpose of the values is. I found an interview of Ardeth G. Kapp, who was the YW General President when the YW values were announced. The interview talks about why the YW values are what they are.
And secondly I wanted to talk about what the values are NOT.

First, the YW values are NOT the world’s standards or values.

“Many of our young women seem to have an unclear sense of identity. They don’t have a sure understanding of what it means to be young women in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This leaves them susceptible to the negative influences of the world. Advertisements, entertainment, and the media promote the idea that to be physically attractive and popular with young men is of utmost importance. Thus, the more dates, the more boyfriends a young woman has, the greater her worth.

“If this is the only standard by which a young woman judges her worth, the result is often low self-esteem. As young women come to better understand who they are and gain a sense of their divine destiny, they will be better prepared to withstand the temptations of the world. They will also find fulfillment through gaining knowledge, rendering service to others, and making decisions based on their knowledge of right and wrong.”

Other standards besides beauty and luck with boys are advocated all around us, and we can identify, with practice, what those are. The Lord’s standards are clear and are set out for you in the YW values. He wants you to be successful, and He wants to help you define success in a purposeful way that will bring you true happiness all your life.

Notice it is purposeful. My point #2 is that the YW values are NOT randomly chosen values.

They were not randomly picked from a hat, but rather were carefully, prayerfully selected by leaders trying to give you the best tools you can get to be strong, steady YW. Note what the values all have in common and you’ll see they are not randomly chosen. The first, and it’s important that it’s first, is faith—faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the rest:
Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works, and Integrity.

These are all intensely personal concepts for each of us to develop. And as we develop them we learn more about who we really are, and about the standards God has for us.

Ardeth G. Kapp said:
“The Young Women Values…serve as a guide to every young woman. These values can help a young woman understand who she really is and give her an identity apart from the world. The gospel principles expressed in the Values help her to increase her faith in Heavenly Father and to realize that the qualities she possesses are part of her divine nature. These understandings will guide her in setting goals, in evaluating her progress, and in making her life purposeful.”

So the Young Women values are not the world’s standards, and they were not randomly chosen. Sister Kapp says that the underlying purpose of the YW values is to help each “young woman understand who she really is and give her an identity apart from the world.” It is to help you develop your identity as a daughter of God.

As you develop and work on these values, I hope they become not just the collective YW values, but YOUR values. And I hope you use them the rest of your life, even after you aren’t “young” women, but older ones. I promise that if you make a real effort to develop the YW values and do your Personal Progress, you WILL develop “a sure understanding of what it means to be [a young woman] in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”