close to my heart

sooo many things to discuss today. first of all. during Young Womens today we had an amazing lesson. it was about the Young Womens theme. here are the notes i wrote down:

January 16th

Faith = purity
Divine Nature = respect for yourself
Individual Worth = everyone is important
Knowledge = always grow
Choice and Accountability = your teen choices will shape the rest of your life
Good Works = we've all had a time when we needed help. so give others that help
Integrity = if you have this, you have every other value. stay true to yourself
Virtue = a gift from God

"if they knew they were Royalty, they would never thorw it away by making bad choices" <-- gives us self confidence, so you dont have to get it the wordly way

soo this is probably all very confusing. i will break it down for you.

faith will give you  purity. if you are ever feeling unclean or unworthy to be a part of this church, have faith in God that he can make you better. this sounds cliche but it is so so so true. i have personally been throught the repentance process. for those of you who dont know what that is, go talk to your ward friends. they will gladly tell you. you feel so much better when you know that your mistakes in the past wont ever be held against you again.

Divine Nature is especially close to my heart. lets just say that i havent always been happy with myself. there was even a point that i plead with God to send me someone i could fall in love with, that would make me feel good about myself again. i wanted a boy so badly. but then i realized. this is stupid. i need to learn how to stand on my own. divine nature is all about having respect for yourself, and i learned that after long months of being unhappy. its like in scott pilgrim vs. the world. in his first try he learns the power of love, and that gives him alot of power, but his sword eventually breaks and he dies. in his second try, he learns the power of self respect, and that gives him a sword that doesnt break. instead of dying, he saves the town and gets the girl. ha cliches. but really, self respect is the first step towards finding your soul mate, and i am so glad i found mine (self respect, not my soul mate-- yet!). i feel so sorry for all the girls out there that are still clinging to boys to make them feel good about themselves. if you are failing school and ditching class to see your boyfriend then there is obviously something wrong there. okay so my vent is over

individual worth goes hand in hand with divine nature. it says that everyone is important, even if you havent found your confidence yet. it teaches you to love yourself no matter what. that reminds me of a quote:

Want to know a secret?
You are beautiful.
Black, white, gay, straight, bisexual. Whether you are smart or quiet or impossibly in love with your best friend, someone out there cherishes your smile and gets butterflies when you walk into a room.
Someone out there can't stop thinking about you. You Are Beautiful. Don't ever believe differently.
(from sixbillionsecrets.com)

Knowledge is pretty self explainitory. except it doesnt talk about talents. i think talents are one of the most important things you could possibly have. you can take them anywhere. i wouldnt say that i have a ton of talents, but i would hate to lose my voice or my writing abilities. ever heard of the story in the bible about talents? basically, if you dont use your talents and make them grow, then you will lose them. i mean, imagine the world without them? no sports to get your frustrations out. no music to be there when no one else is. we wouldnt have this beautiful quote :

The Script taught me how to move on.
Bruno Mars taught me to do anything for that one person I love
Eminem taught me that life is hard but you can make it through
Travis taught me to be generous
Taylor Swift taught me not every guy is going to treat me right
John Mayer taught me to speak whats on my mind
Michael Jackson taught me to always love the people around me
Music taught me to live

Choice and Accountability is a hard one. no one wants to be in trouble. in the lesson we talked about how all you decisions in your teen years will define your life later on. thats so true. i have good grades (4.0 baby!) and i work  hard to do extra curricular activities. i have my future in mind and am preparing for it. but there are some girls that i know who dont care about thier futures. they live in the now. they dont care about grades, as long as their boyfriends are happy. those kinds of girls drive me crazy. but i guess its thier lives and not mine. so moving on

Good Works. this is also a close one to my heart. when i was going through my rough patch of self worth issues, i swear i had NO one there. i tried to talk to my best friend about it, but she just blew me off saying that i needed to get over it and stop being sad. so i did, and that was the end that she heard of it. i bottled it up inside and that was the wrong thing to do. but when i didnt have my so called sister by my side, i had someone else. ive mentioned him in some of my other posts, and he is my second most important person of 2010. he helped me understand that i was beautiful, and that pulled me out of my slump. i will always be grateful for him, even though we have grown apart. ive grown so much from that experience, and now i know how to be strong when things dont turn out like i wanted. in fact, i think that might be the reason i got through my october distaster with few scars. since i was so alone, now i try my best to always be there when others need me. thats my definition of good works. being there whenever someone needs you. because thats what i would want to have (and i do. nikki. duh!)

integrity. this is a small but suprisingly broad thing. to me it means honesty. that you could go to the grave with no regrets and no fears. i dont really know much about integrity, but i do know that all the best people and relationships have it.

virtue. this is my favorite value. virtue means keeping yourself clean, no matter what. it means waiting untill youre 16, and then waiting untill marriage. its my favorite because its so dang hard to do. i mean, have you seen guys? they are irresistable. but i guess they probably say that about girls. anyway. virtue is hard to accomplish. but it will definatly have the best reward.

okay so last topic. the quote that is up there is talking about how if all the people in the world knew that they were daughters and sons of heavenly father, and that we are royalty, then no one would make bad choices. no one would have self esteem issues because they would always know where they came from. it also says that we wouldnt have to gain confidence the worldy way, by always having a boyfriend, or always having the latest clothes, but by knowing God was on your side. and thats pretty much all i have to say! byyee(: