“Youth,” Liahona, October 2019
Youth
Photograph by Leslie Nilsson
Mobile phones are expensive in Chile, but I set a goal in 2016 to earn enough money to buy one. For an entire year, I bought candy and alfajores* wholesale and sold them to my friends at school. I saved everything I made. I didn’t go out to lunch, and I didn’t go to the movies.
I didn’t want to ask my parents for a phone. I wanted to be able to say I earned it myself. My dad encouraged me. “Carol, keep it up,” he would say.
I learned a lot. Nothing is free. Goals take effort, but we should never give up. When we earn things and realize how much work it takes to get them, we value them more.
I learned that I have to decide what I want to achieve and where I want to go. If I want to get married in the temple, I need to go to church and seminary and later institute and young single adult activities. And I need to date worthy young men. Achieving goals requires sacrifice now for something better later.
Carol, 15, Chile