At first I felt a little overwhelmed by the topic because I know that I myself have struggled with several if not all of the things it talks about for the past several years. I felt under qualified and inadequateto teach our girls how to love themselves and see themselves the way the Lord sees them. But I couldn’t exactly back out of the lesson, so instead I took it as a challenge and tried to make it the best lesson I could possibly come up with!
Though I haven’t gone to church and taught yet, I will give you a few links (at the bottom of the blog) to the 3 biggest influences for my modified lesson.
The first is by Thomas S. Monson in the June 2010 Liahona called “Canaries with grey on their wings.” I really liked the story about the grey feathered canary and how even though he certainly wasn't the most beautiful bird he had "the sweetest song" which is why his owner valued him above the other more beautiful birds. Go ahead and read it for yourself and feel free to do the activity at the bottom where you list three ways you yourself can “sing your sweetest song” for our Father in Heaven.
The Second talk is actually mentioned at the end of President Monson’s canary story and it is called “True Beauty” by Elder Lynn G. Robbins of the Seventy in the Nov 2008 New Era.This talk is a little more straight forward with the Young women and tells them what he believes true beauty is through the eyes of our Father in Heaven. I like that it has bolded topics so the girls can actually look for topics they are interested in and read those few parts if they dont feel like reading the whole talk each time (which is what i will be having them do in class.)
The third part is the second chapter from a book entitled “Where do I go from here? Finding your own personal mission as a young adult Women” By Irene Ericksen and Jan Pinborough. This chapter was actually the biggest inspiration for my lesson. It helped me to decide to go and look up things outside the YW manual and find things that were straightforward and applicable to our girls. I wanted to make sure they were things that they could take home and read over and over whenever they found that they needed to remind themselves that they are Daughters of God.
I will admit I don’t own my own copy of this book, (but I would assume that you would be able to buy a copy at Deseret book or something like that if you desire to read it). I actually only have the second chapter which is entitled “Your gifts: Fitted to your mission.” I received a copy of this chapter last October from my friend Jessie. One night we were talking and I confided in her how useless and untalented I felt. I was so sad and just felt almost worthless to anyone and everything. Of coursethat night she tried her best to encourage me and give me a pep talk, but a few nights later she showed up at my door with a photo copy of this chapter and a loving note. As I read the chapter it was like an answer to my prayer, and exactly what I needed. Not only does it talk about the worth of souls and different aspects of gifts and talents, but it also had little areas to write down thoughts and lists where you can check things off.
As you can probably tell I was very impressed with it and I have held on to it. Today I plan on giving each of my young women their own copy of this chapter as well as the other two talks i just told you about, in hope that they will always have something to look at and remind themselves of their infinite worth.
I hope that they can do the same to you if you decide to read them. You are a Child of God! And nothing is more important than realizing how important you are. You are of infinite worth and you have potential beyond your imagination
-Lauri
Here are the links:
http://lds.org/liahona/2010/06/canaries-with-gray-on-their-wings?lang=eng
http://lds.org/new-era/2008/11/true-beauty?lang=eng
Lauri, Thank you so much for this post. This is exactly what I want to teach the Relief Society sisters in my ward on Sunday, but I didn't know where to start!
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