“Dressing for a Dance,” New Era, Oct. 2012, 22
Dressing for a Dance
Illustration by Scott Greer
I was tempted to follow the crowd, but then I realized I needed to be an example instead.
When I was a teen, it was sometimes hard to live the gospel. The area I lived in didn’t have many Church members, and my friends who were not members of the Church sometimes made it harder for me to stay on the right track.
“You should wear this; it would bring out the color in your eyes,” one of my friends said to me before a dance. She held up a dress she was going to let me borrow, but it didn’t have sleeves. I decided to wear the dress with a jacket.
When I got to the dance, nobody else was wearing a dress with sleeves, and I felt like I stood out. When I started getting too warm, my friends told me I should just take off the jacket and that I would look better anyway.
Just as I was about to justify taking off the jacket, I remembered my patriarchal blessing. My blessing told me I would have many temptations and if I fell, many individuals would follow me. That was when I realized I needed to stay on the right track—not only for myself but for others who looked up to me. I decided to keep the jacket on.
Sometimes I was made fun of for not doing the things everybody else was doing, but I stayed strong and was blessed because of it. I later learned that many people had looked up to me. Some of my friends even told me they respected me for following my standards. They apologized for giving me such a hard time for not doing the things everybody else was doing in high school.
Because I followed the standards of the Church and tried to be an example, I was able to have missionary experiences and teach the gospel to others. I would not have been able to influence others if I hadn’t stayed on the right track.