“Of All Things,” New Era, Nov. 2003, 38
Of All Things
“We need not wait for Christmas, we need not postpone till Thanksgiving Day our response to the Savior’s tender admonition: ‘Go, and do thou likewise.’”
—President Thomas S. Monson
(Ensign, Nov. 1994, 71)
As Zion’s Youth
Hymns can be a great blessing in our lives. “As Zion’s Youth in Latter Days” is probably one of the hymns you sing a lot in your classes and at your activities (Hymns, no. 256). But when your parents were teenagers, they didn’t have this song in the hymnbook. For our current hymnbook, the 1985 edition, Susan Evans McCloud was asked to write a song that youth could relate to.
“I expressed my desire that the song might mean to some of [the youth] what the songs of the youth had meant to me when I was struggling through my own teenage years,” Sister McCloud said. “I received great sustenance, courage, and joy from the songs for youth. I wanted this song to do that for some suffering or confused or vacillating youth” (Our Latter-day Hymns, 262).
So the next time you sing “As Zion’s Youth in Latter Days,” or any other hymn, remember that you can gain courage and strength from singing a hymn.
Test Your LDS I.Q.
At first glance, women in the scriptures appear to be few. But they are only few in name. Many women and groups of women are mentioned in the scriptures, and many of them played important roles, even if we don’t know their names. Here are some questions on a few of those women.
-
Which group of women was the cause of a war between the people of Limhi in the land of Nephi and the Lamanites in the bordering lands?
-
Three women are mentioned by name in the Doctrine and Covenants. Emma Smith and Vienna Jaques are two of them. Who is the third?
-
Who was the only female judge and prophetess mentioned in the book of Judges in the Old Testament?
-
Deborah
-
Ruth
-
Zipporah
-
Growing Values
The young women of the Sharon Second Ward, Orem Utah Sharon Stake, were searching for Knowledge. They had already found Divine Nature, Integrity, and all the other values. Finally, their search led them to parsley. Yes—parsley.
When the flower bed at their chapel became overgrown, the young women and their leaders decided they would spruce it up with some help from the ward custodian. They cleared away the overgrowth and planted a value garden. They chose flowers that would represent the colors of the Young Women values. A green flower for Knowledge was a little hard to find, but the girls eventually settled on parsley.
“I was very excited to see the value garden grow into something beautiful,” says Emily Killpack, one of the young women. “I was thinking that my testimony would grow just like these flowers. The Young Women values are the things that help my testimony grow.”
Leadership Tip
Be understanding when others make mistakes. “We can show forth our love for others even when we are called upon to correct them. We need to be able to look deeply enough into the lives of others to see the basic causes for their failures and shortcomings,” said President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985).
“Jesus saw sin as wrong but also was able to see sin as springing from deep and unmet needs on the part of the sinner. This permitted Him to condemn the sin without condemning the individual” (Ensign, Aug. 1979, 5).
Creative Juices
Pull out those keyboards and start brainstorming for the BYU English Department’s writing contest for Latter-day Saint high school students. Cash prizes will be awarded in the following categories:
-
poetry (one poem or more for a total of 25 to 60 lines)
-
personal essay (700 to 2,500 words)
-
critical essay (700 to 2,500 words)
-
fictional story (1,000 to 4,000 words)
You may submit only one entry per category. Please send in your entries by 30 January 2004.
You can get all the rules and an application form at the contest Web site: http://English.BYU.edu/contests.html. Or you can write RE:WRITING Chair, 3125 JKHB, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602. You can also call (801) 422-4939 or e-mail paia_palmer@byu.edu.