Mia Shalom...January Edition

Provo Central Stake Young Women and leaders get to spend June 28 through July 2 at beautiful Mia Shalom! We are camping in the East Area! Yay for changes! The buses leave our stake center at noon on Tuesday and return at 2:30 on Saturday. (This is for all of you who just cannot wait until our next meeting to find out!)

This morning we participated in Winter Workshop planned and carried out by the Mia Shalom executive committee. Thirty seven stakes attend Mia Shalom. This morning there were between 900 and 1,000 participants. Amazing!

President Carl Jensen told us that the basis for great miracles is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Then Young Women with their mothers and leaders sang a beautiful song "Miracles" under the direction of our good friend A. B.

We were privileged to hear from President Steven Sabins of the Northpark Stake. He is the stake president over Mia Shalom. We were truly spiritually fed. I wanted to recap his remarks as they were so pertinent to what we are facing. Our girls have been bombarded with anti-family propaganda--they are surrounded with sexual impurity, encouraged to put off marriage even losing faith in marriage, encouraged to seek the things of the world without concern for eternal principles. We meed top help them prepare for eternity. We need to talk about the imminent importance of the family. The parable of the 10 virgins is a parable of being spiritually prepared. We cannot borrow someone else's spiritual preparation. We cannot borrow someone else's gifts. We cannot borrow someone else's skills. We can only strengthen and prepare our own. The power of the Priesthood can truly be experienced by each one of us individually. "You are women of promise, you have been endowed and with such comes every blessing of the priesthood." It was a wonderful talk and I really am not giving it justice. He went on to tell us that virtue is being just and true on who we are and what we do. He also admonished us to let our YCLs be the leaders. Being a shadow leader is not a role of abdication, rather it is encouraging them ot exerise their leadership skills. So, all of you campers out there, please help me remember to let the YCLs lead.

This message was especially important to me as I have been thinking since last summer that at camp this year we need to help our Young Women understand what it means to, "strengthen home and family, make and keep sacred covenants, receive the ordinances of the temple and enjoy the blessings of exhaltation." Exactlty what President Sabins encouraged us to help the Young Women understand and live.