I Will Never Forget

I love Relief Society, but there are some things about young women's that I really miss, the biggest one being reciting the young women's theme every Sunday. It wasn't a huge deal to me in young women's. I mean, I liked saying it with all of the other girls, but I didn't realize the power of it until I didn't have the opportunity to say the theme anymore. When I visit my home ward, I like going to young women's with my mom because I get to say the theme. There really is power in it.

In my human development class on Friday, we talked about the formation of the self, of the identity. My professor asked us, "women, who are you?" Our immediate answer was "daughters of God," to which he responded, "who loves us..."gesturing for us to say the whole thing, which we did, and I was overjoyed. I was reminded of an experience I had that has stuck with me ever since.

Two years ago, I participated in my high school's ballroom competition. We host a two day competition every year, and as team members it is our responsibility to work and help run the competition in addition to competing individually. During the second day, all of us girls received a few packages of dove chocolate and a poster that read "To Our Amazing Partners" with notes from each guy to his partner. I was so touched and kept thinking about how amazing the guys were that I had the privilege of knowing. When we met as a team the next Monday morning, we found out that a lot of degrading and inappropriate conversation had been going on during the competition in our boys' locker room. I was shocked and somewhat upset that these boys I knew would talk like that. The boys and girls were separated, and each coach took turns talking to each group. When we joined together again, our head coach asked all of the girls to recite the young women's theme to remind both ourselves and the guys on our team who we were. I will never forget that experience. It was powerful and indescribable. All of us knew who we were and we had the opportunity to share that with the guys we were constantly around. I don't know what kind of an impact it had on them, but I do know what kind of an impact it had on me. I know that I am a daughter of God, that every single person on the earth is a son or daughter of the Creator of the Universe. He loves us and we are worth everything to Him.

Happy Sunday!