Transcript

[MUSIC] I know that it's so hard to find modest prom dresses these days. I have so many memories of going to stores and looking and looking and finding the good one and it being too expensive or finding one that worked and just thinking, why would I spend all this money on something I have to alter? I just thought it would be good to have one place where you could go and know that you could borrow some modest, good dresses and not have to pay.

I had an idea of just going around and asking institutes and people who have already graduated for dresses, if we could have them and maybe rent them out. Of course being in Young Women, the first thought that came to my mind is what a great Personal Progress project that would be. Thinking that it would be a 10-hour project, I started on it. And since then it's really grown and it's a lot more work. We went through the institute and through Facebook with friends of people who were older, and the result was 195 dresses within two or three months. So some of the dresses were modest and some weren't. Their goal is to make every dress that they have modest. For Mutual a few times the young women would get together and all the leaders and we'd get a few ladies in the ward who knew how to sew just to bring their sewing machines and teach all the young women how to make shrugs for all the dresses. Yeah. A shrug is a little jacket that you can wear over a dress and it's able to cover your shoulders and your back and your arms. I've learned that service makes you happy and it makes you feel like you're doing something important. It makes you feel good about yourself. I really feel like none of this would have happened if it wasn't for the service of other people.

I really love just taking the girls in and showing them dresses. They're really excited and it's just fun. And it makes me feel good that-- I know what it's like to go shopping and how hard it is. And it's just nice to know that I have that many dresses in there that I know that they'll like. What we finally decided was to take a deposit of $30, a fully-refundable deposit when they came and took the dress. And then their responsibility is to get the dress dry cleaned and have it come back in good condition. And when they bring it back they get their full $30 back. Their hope was that the dresses would come back even more modest and more fashionable, and they have. When I went to prom, a lot of the girls in our group actually used some of the dresses from my project. And when I see someone who's modest, I feel like they understand who they are. With Charity, of course she has a whole slew of younger sisters that are watching and she has tremendous effect on the people around her. As me and my friends are modest, we're always comfortable. We have a fun time. We love each other for who we are. Modesty is, I think, a really big part to living a virtuous life. I think that's really important, that we're willing to follow the leaders in our Church and our prophet and do things they've asked us, even if it means being different.

And you do you feel different when you go and you're modest. But it's a good different. And there's a confidence that comes. And when you have other friends that are modest, it makes it so much easier. The benefit of having a young woman who has a virtuous heart, it's tremendous. And Charity has done that in all areas, but especially I've appreciated that she's been able to work on this project. She's been a great example for everybody around her. When you know you're doing right and you're living a good life and trying to do what the Lord wants you to do, there's a light that comes into your life and people do notice it.

195 Dresses

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Have you ever noticed how hard it is to find a modest prom dress? One young woman in Arizona came up with a solution for her community.
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