How to Be a Young Woman of God

By Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

From the October 2005 general conference address “To Young Women” (Ensign, Nov. 2005, 28–30).

I want you to be proud you are a woman. I want you to feel the reality of what that means. You are literally a spirit daughter of heavenly parents with a divine nature and an eternal destiny. That surpassing truth should be fixed deep in your soul and be fundamental to every decision you make as you grow into mature womanhood.

Your Father in Heaven knows your name and knows your circumstance. He hears your prayers. He knows your hopes and dreams, including your fears and frustrations. And He knows what you can become through faith in Him. Seek to comprehend the significance of these doctrines.

Cherish your esteemed place in the sight of God. He needs you. This Church needs you. The world needs you.

Photograph by Craig Dimond

If for a time any of you are less visionary than this or seem bent on living beneath your privilege, then we express even greater love for you and plead with you to make your teenage years a triumph, not a tragedy. Fathers and mothers, prophets and apostles have no motive except to bless your life and to spare you every possible heartache we can spare you.

For you to fully claim Heavenly Father’s blessings and protection, we ask you to stay true to the standards of the gospel of Jesus Christ and not slavishly follow the whims of fads and fashions. Our standards are not socially negotiable.

A woman not of our faith once wrote something to the effect that in her years of working with beautiful women she had seen several things they all had in common, and not one of them had anything to do with sizes and shapes. She said the loveliest women she had known had a glow of health, a warm personality, a love of learning, stability of character, and integrity. If we may add the sweet and gentle Spirit of the Lord carried by such a woman, then this describes the loveliness of women in any age or time, every element of which is emphasized in and attainable through the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

May you let the eternal realities of the gospel of Jesus Christ lift you above temporal concerns and teenage anxieties.