Mountains and Gold Banners

As a Young Women's presidency, we've been taking turns teaching on the first Sunday of the month.  Tomorrow is my turn.  I was asked to teach about virtue.  Tomorrow is also our wedding anniversary.  Eight years.  Funny how that all fell together, but I do believe there couldn't be a more fitting day to bear testimony to these girls of the power and blessings that come as we choose to live a virtuous life. 

I was no longer a young woman when virtue was added to the theme, but when it was, groups of young women from all over the world would hike various mountains together and unfurl a gold banner not only as an invitation to the world to return to virtue, but also as a personal commitment to live a virtuous life.

Preparing for this lesson and reading about this bold and unashamed declaration to stand for purity in a world that has filth at every turn, has really stirred quite the memories of my young woman days.  One word.  Wait.  Two words.  Prom dresses.  Wearing a modest prom dress.  Now that's an uphill hike and a signal to the world that we don't have to go with their flow.  Can you tell I'm pumped up?!  Every formal I ever wore had sleeves.  My mom's sewing machine was kept busy.  And it wasn't so much about the covered arms as is was about the message.  It's about standing up and standing out and unfurling the gold banner that says we know who we are and that living a life of purity is possible and good.  I am proud of this memory, and no, not proud in a way that makes me think any less of my friends or classmates that weren't quite as covered, but proud in a way that I can one day show Rylee pictures of my proms and tell her how beautiful I felt, inside and out.  And then she'll laugh at the hideous, outdated styles, but they will be hideous and outdated............................with sleeves.



P.S.

As for the picture above, I will admit, throwing gold into the rainbow color scheme that I was used to kind of threw me off.  Duck tape does not come in gold.  Believe me.  I called everywhere imaginable.  Anyway, it was nice of Ucreate Kids to feature THIS FLOWER PEN tutorial a week or so ago so I could copy their brilliant creativity for handouts for the girls.