“Take a Stand for Truth”

President Ardeth G. Kapp

This is no ordinary time and you are no ordinary youth. Today we unite together across continents, the oceans, across cultural differences and language barriers. We stand together as daughters of God bound together by our common commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Together we take a stand for truth and righteousness on this 120th anniversary since the founding of the Young Women organization that took place on November 28, 1869, in the Lion House in Salt Lake City, Utah. On that day the great prophet-leader Brigham Young took from the shelf the family prayer bell. He rant it loud and clear calling his daughters together for a special meeting. The important part to be played by the young women of the Church was seen by President Brigham Young in the early history of the Church. With the vision of the great influence and contribution young women could make and the challenges they would face, he felt to establish an organization which would provide identity and a worldwide sisterhood, an organization which set young women apart from the world. He asked them to “set an example before the people of the world worthy of imitation … to get a living testimony of the truth … and to gain a knowledge of the gospel for themselves.” He called upon them to unite in strength and power and to commit to stand for truth and righteousness.

That original organization was known a the Young Ladies’ Department of the Cooperative Retrenchment Association. The young women voted to sustain the president in his call to organize. They wrote articles committing themselves to “uphold and sustain each other in doing good … that we should not condescend to imitate the pride, folly and fashions of the world, but rather to set examples for others instead of seeking to pattern after them.” It has been 120 years since that early beginning. We are greatly blessed by a prophet-leader in our day who has a vision concerning young women. Listen to the words of President Ezra Taft Benson when he said “You are not just ordinary young women. You are choice spirits. Many of you have been held in reserve for almost 6,000 years to come forth in this day, at this time, when temptations, responsibilities, and opportunities are the very greatest.”

He has encouraged young women to live up to their divine potential. He has said, “Remember who you really are and the divine heritage that is yours. You are literally the royal daughters of our Heavenly Father.”

And prophetically he has declared, “You have been born at this time for a sacred and glorious purpose. It is not by chance that you have been reserved to come to earth in this last dispensation of the fulness of times. Your birth at this particular time was foreordained in the eternities. You are to be royal daughters of the Lord in the last days. You are the youth of the noble birthright.”

This morning we are gathered together with young women, parents and leaders in branches, districts, wards and stakes. We will hear that same bell ring loud and clear once again. Our great prophet-leader, President Ezra Taft Benson, will issue a call to young women—not only those gathered in the Lion House, not only those in Utah or even the United States, but young women around the world.

In behalf of the Young Women Presidency and Board we ask each of you to commit with us to respond to the call of our prophet, to sustain and accomplish the mission which he sees for young women.