The Law of Chastity YW lesson

1  President Gordon B. Hinckley warned: “You live in a world of terrible temptations. Pornography, with its sleazy filth, sweeps over the earth like a horrible, engulfing tide. It is poison. Do not watch it or read it. It will destroy you if you do. It will take from you your self-respect. It will rob you of a sense of the beauties of life. It will tear you down and pull you into a slough of evil thoughts and possibly of evil actions. Stay away from it. Shun it as you would a foul disease, for it is just as deadly. Be virtuous in thought and in deed. God has planted in you, for a purpose, a divine urge which may be easily subverted to evil and destructive ends. When you are young, do not get involved in steady dating. When you reach an age where you think of marriage, then is the time to become so involved. But you boys who are in high school don’t need this, and neither do the girls” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1997, 71–72; or Ensign, Nov. 1997, 51).—Gospel principles, chapter 39

The video was embedded in PowerPoint but had to download separately for my blog.  See below.  :-)

Stephanie’s rose story

“I wanted to share with you what mom told me when I was a teenage girl that meant so much to me. 

“My mom told me to picture myself as a beautiful, perfect rose. She said and now picture a row of young men, those who you will date, it may be a couple, it may be a few but at the end of the row is your husband, your soul mate. Now the first young man in the row is the first one to take you out on a date so he is holding the rose that represents you. In his other hand is another rose, he is going to treat them both quite different. One rose, he will be able to touch and smell and feel while the other rose is untouched and remains beautiful. The roses will be passed down the row with the same rules for each young man. When the two roses that have been treated much differently come to your husband which one is he going to want? Which one are you going to want to give him? The one that is wilted and losing petals? Or the untouched beautiful rose that was left only for him?

“Anyway, I know that might be kind of corny but it meant a lot to me and I was so happy with my decision to be the beautiful rose not the wilted one. I know that was the right thing to do even with the [peer] pressures growing up and I'm sure they're probably even worse now but what I found was that the stronger the [peer] pressure was the more power and self confidence I gained from sticking to my guns, it made me stronger to hold firm to what I believed in. And in the end I married a wonderful man who respected my beliefs and is a wonderful husband and father and anyone who didn't respect my decisions in the past well they just weren't half the man he is! So I appreciate them letting their true colors shine so I could move on to much better things! And I feel like I have been greatly rewarded by God with Will and now Weston.”

– personal e-mail received from Stephanie, November 1, 2014

This is the lesson I taught yesterday to be young women in my ward.  I didn't get to the last five slides :-(.  I barely made it to the video and Stephanie's story then I told the girls when I think of the perfect rose I think of a red long stemmed rose.  So I bought them each a red long stemmed rose to take home with them to remind them to keep the law of chastity.  Those are the roses pictured above :-)

I had to double duty yesterday.  After teaching YW at church, I had to teach FHE when we got home.  That PowerPoint is to come.  If I can figure it out again.  It took me forever to figure out how to convert to JPEG to put on my blog.