Most Excellent

Tonight I had the great pleasure to attend a Young Women in Excellence night for one of the wards in my stake.  It came at the end of an especially trying day at work which was followed by an afternoon of dance festival meetings at two opposite ends of town, a 15 minute stop with Meesa for a quick dinner and then a drive through rain and traffic to yet another opposite (lol) end of town.  So basically, my day was kind of, well, it was pretty much a stinky day.

I arrived at the church and walked into the room where the special event was to be held and was immediately greeted by a chorus of "Sister Shaw! Sister Shaw" from the girls.  (Seriously, how great is it to be me?  Trust me.  It's really great.)  The program began and after the opening prayer, we stood and said the Young Women theme.  The Holy Ghost bore witness to me so powerfully that the things we were saying were true.

We are daughters of our Heavenly Father, who loves us and we love Him.

We will stand as witnesses of God 

at all times, and in all things, and in all places

as we strive to live the Young Women Values, which are:

Faith

Divine Nature

Individual Worth

Knowledge

Choice and Accountability

Good Works

Integrity and

Virtue

We believe as we come to accept and act upon these values,

we will be prepared to strengthen home and family

make and keep sacred covenants,

receive the ordinances of the temple,

and enjoy the blessings of exaltation.

Three of the young women then took turns talking about important activities they had participated in this year:  Young Women Camp, Pioneer Trek and various service projects.  At some point, I leaned over to Meg who is in the stake YW presidency with me and said, "we have the best callings!" and she agreed.

The girls then sang "My Grateful Spirit Sings" which was one of the songs we sang in our recent youth musical.  I could no longer hold back the tears as I looked at each one of their beautiful faces and thought "I love each one of these girls."  I'd had a feeling like that once before, many years ago, when I was a newly called ward YW counselor, wondering if I'd ever be able to love all of the girls in my stewardship.  I'm grateful that even though my group of young women is much larger now, I have been blessed by my Heavenly Father with the capacity to love each one of them completely and unconditionally.

The young women each then took a turn describing a personal progress value project they had completed or were still working on.  Three or four of them mentioned our recent musical and what an impact it had on their lives.  I love that our stake programs, while sometimes challenging and often time consuming, provide faith-promoting and testimony building experiences for our youth.  The church is so great!

I'm so grateful for the blessings I receive because of my church service.  I'm thankful every day that I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I know that I'm a daughter of God and that He loves me.  I know that Jesus Christ is my brother and that He died for my sins.  I know the Bible and the Book of Mormon are the word of God.  I know that we have a living prophet on the earth today and he is Thomas S. Monson.

Sweet is the peace the gospel brings...every minute of every day.