New Favorite

http://ourmothersdaughters.blogspot.com/2011/11/ask-auntie-leila-five-steps-to-feeling.html

This is a post worth talking about! 

Book suggestions

I like Kelly's idea to get back to the original meaning of this blog/chat group.  I want to read and discuss great ideas again!   I suggest we start with Notwithstanding My Weakness by Elder Maxwell.  OR Spiritual Lightening by M. Catherine Thomas.  OR The Lonesome Gods (because I'm reading it right now and dying to discuss it all with someone...so good!).  OR Whatever anyone else wants to read right now.  OR we could take a chapter each month from the new RS book and discuss it.  That might be fun,too.  Okay...enough of my ideas.  LOL

Misfit and other things

I happen to have a little extra time this week, so I'm going to go ahead and write a little about this post. But then I think it would be nice (and I think it's time) to leave Misfit for awhile and talk about something else. I'd love to read a book from our list again. I know the holidays and busyness are coming up, but if we schedule a due date of mid-January??? What do you all think of that?

Before I get to this particular Misfit post, I want to tell you something. Last night I was at the stake leadership training for YW and the camp director was there to make the first announcement for girls camp next summer. And she said, I kid you not, "our theme this year is 'Who Am I' from Dr. Suess". I just about died - that was the LAST thing I was expecting. Grrrrr. And a bunch of women went, "ahhhh, cute!" Lucky for me, I have an in with a member of the stake presidency, so on the way home last night I had a serious complaint session with Josh about the inappropriateness of that theme. I knew he would agree with me, but I'm hoping that he'll really push the Stake President to make them change it. He said that his understanding is that they let the girls choose it - those girls who are going for their last year, who basically run camp. I'm going to keep making a fuss about it, because I think that's ridiculous, and I think a better example should be shown to the Young Women about what the focus of Camp is. And i think they should have gotten it approved before they announced it.

On to Misfit. I'll be brief.
First, I think Twilight is lame. I'm disappointed in Stephenie Meyers interpretation of a "chaste" relationship that goes against all counsel by our leaders. I think Mormons get over-excited about having "one of us" go mainstream and assume anything written by a fellow Mormon is quality. Blech. It's not. Much as I like Orson Scott Card's books, they disappoint me also - I can't help wondering if he really thinks the Savior would approve his use of strong language. Shannon Hale, a favorite author, also wrote a book, "The Actor and the Housewife", that goes against my feelings of what is an appropriate relationship for a married woman with a member of the opposite sex. Let's be real. She should never put herself in that position - no matter how "platonic" that relationship is. Lame.

Second - on the photography thing. It's absolutely a disgusting business. I'm making no comments on what people do in the privacy of their own home, but as a business I think it's inappropriate. I do know from one of the current matron's assistants at the Oakland temple that inappropriate dress has long been a problem at the weddings there. She said it is far too often the mother of the bride who is pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable and right. So there you have it.

Anyway, I'm off to be a productive wife and mother. I hope. ;-)

Sum Up and New Assignment

To sum up: we think, in general, that YM and YW is not where testimony is found but a place for social interaction with other youth. We also feel, in general, that a lot of service should take place in our youth programs and that we should try to maintain the highest possible standards at all youth events. We also feel, in general, that a few over-the-top youth speakers are a good thing because adolescents are primarily emotional beings and that is what reaches them.

I feel like I am laying down the parameters of a new organization or something. My recap leaves much to be desired. Thanks for all the thoughtful responses--it gave me a lot to think about.

Here's the next assignment. Read this and comment.

Oh, a few comments I forgot

Scouting: I think Mother's force their children in most things they do, Personal Progress, Faith in God, Scouting, everything--it just takes more work with teenage boys. I think the Scout program is a good program, but I had friends that exemplified the best of it--they weren't overboard wackos but they really worked and learned to get their Eagle Scouts. (Thomas N. and Matthew F. for example). I hope my boys are like that.

Time out for Women: Gag--my friend payed for me to go to one and it was lame. Maybe because I had bronchitis at the time. But still my overall impression was that it was lame.

And that's all I can remember right now that I forgot.

Introducing Natalie my neighbor

Natalie summed it up much better than I did in all my ramblings. So I made her come write it down.

Activities associated with the church that are more for entertainment than learning definitely have their place. There is something to be said for building positive, uplifting, emotional experiences that are closely connected to the gospel.

And that in short was her opinion, (which I share) based on the limited amount of info that I told her from all these discussions.

Hmmm.....

I am currently ignoring the dishes on the table, the laundry, the mending, my homework, etc., to respond. I skimmed through the Youth post by what's her name freaky lady, and then skimmed through the bulk of your responses. But I really have to make this brief. Here's my opinion.

EFY: Went, loved it, would definitely send my kids. However, I wouldn't expect much more than a fun camp. EFY is not responsible for teaching my kids the gospel, but why not EFY instead of band camp, or science camp, or other youth camp program?

Music: I can't stand Christian music of any sorts (except maybe instrumental hymns). My brain almost rotted out of my head in Florida where Christian music made up a 1/3 of all the stations. I feel the same way about listening to Delilah. Or any preachy, annoying person on the radio. Like umm, Glenn Beck. Ugghhh. I can't stand country either though, since 9/11. Too much "America is the Universe" type songs. Basically, give me Smashing Pumpkins and Weezer any day. I guess I'm heretical according to Pyshco-lady. I will say though, I don't listen to most contemporary pop music either, I can't even tell you one Beiber song. And while it was cute to hear Elena sing, "Shake, Shake, Shake!" (Metro Station) to the radio, I never downloaded it and added it to our CD music because of the lyrics, and I find much of pop music inappropriate.

John Bytheway, Deseret Book, and the like: Funny once in a while, I've never really liked that sort of a thing much. Deseret Book in it's entirety I've always thought was a bit overwhelming and Andrea and I have long disparaged their authors, like Anita Stansfield etc, but I also don't like Janette Oke, or any books like that at all really--so is it really Deseret Book, or is it I simply would prefer to read nonfiction books about lost cities in the Amazon? And if John Bytheway can get through to even a few teens, then what's the harm? I love Brad Wilcox's books about maturation and I use it to teach my children and his talk is the one talk I remember from EFY.

Facebook: I am friends with a few of Leo's YM from back in the day in Chicago, and yes they post hugely inappropriate things, however, I don't find that at all surprising as only two of the YM in our ward were allowed to take the sacrament and they were deacons at the time. I personally just don't want to know that much about the youth's lives and most posts are song lyrics or stupidity. I only have so much time to waste.

Youth Conferences: I only remember two, one was lame, the other fun (temple trip to Cardston from ND). Again I feel the same way about them as EFY, socializing is a good thing when you're out in the sticks like ND. I had a blast at all our stake activities. But then there were only about 45 youth and no really big cliques (how could there be in a stake that small?) Did I have spiritual experiences there? Not that I recall, although again, I don't think YC should be where I gain my testimony. It did help uplift me and support me to just go out and have friends with common beliefs, which is basically what I think Relief Society does for me now.

Girls Camp and Testimony meeting: One particular girls camp, the leaders had us all gather and told us that Ogden and Hill Air Force Base had been bombed and they weren't sure if our parents were okay...etc. We all knew it wasn't true, but there were still girls bawling and carrying on, and we were supposed to write letters to our families, and well, Amanda C. (remember Ands, she was bit of a goth) and Rachel (Ands -your cousin) and I sat snickering away in a corner. And basically were glared at the whole time by our leaders. I was 13 or 14 at the time. I'm telling this story to simply to make the point that I've never been the type of girl to bawl hysterically in that type of situation (okay, Andrea, I know I bawl hysterically fairly regularly but not in those situations). I think the most impressive testimony I ever heard at girls camp was a girl who said she wasn't sure if she had a testimony, but she was trying to find out (her honesty impressed me--because I felt the same but didn't have the courage to say it). I either avoided bearing my testimony or simply said something short and to the point. But I know a lot of girls who really seemed to find it all inspiring and faith building.

And now on to YM and YW's in general: I don't know what to say. My experiences are very varied. Personally, in YW's I was always jealous of the YM who seemed to get to do more--hiking, camping, ACTIVE things. I didn't have a bad time in YW's though. Leo was in the YM's presidency in Chicago and only 3 YM came, and the rest were on drugs (literally) and had serious immorality issues. But this is where I'd like to know more about Ms Psycho-lady's study and statistics. Where are those statistics from? The whole church? The US? Utah? I just skimmed so maybe I missed it, but that makes a big difference. Our ward was a Spanish speaking ward in Chicago and entirely composed of converts, who were mostly illegal immigrants, and lived in brutal neighborhoods. I'm amazed even three YM came. (See, this is where demographics come in, the Hispanic population across the US is booming, also baptismal rates for Hispanics is also very high--yet Hispanic culture in many ways is at odds with Mormon values of modesty and strict following the rules. It's more like mañana, mañana and dotting the i's doesn't matter. It's going to take a while, probably a few generations for that to change. But I think it will.)

As for my experience here in Provo as a YW leader, well again, it was the Spanish ward, mostly illegal immigrants, mostly converts, and yes, we had huge issues with our YW (16 and under, older than that they didn't come anymore) with immorality, modesty, etc. However, have you taken a recent gander at Latin culture? The girls were horribly immodest but dressed pretty much the same as their culture at large, and like I said, most of these girls were converts, it takes a while most of the time for principles to sink in, especially when the mother's dressed the same. And as for a huge budget, we had $600 for the entire year, YC and YW's camp included. The YM had $300. Ummm, overspending was not our problem. And painting fingernails did result in our biggest turnout for a weekday activity. Good or bad? At least they were there and not at their boyfriends' houses.

So, what did I teach or plan for activities? First, I tried to get the president to actually have a meeting once a month to plan activities. That took several months. Then yes, we catered to the girls to try to get them to come while throwing in a activity from the YW Personal Progress on the side, so that maybe they might think about accomplishing something useful.

Lessons on Sunday were much better, when I just had the MiaMaids (2 sisters made up my class), I was entirely frank with them ALL the time. Basically, you have to know the gospel is true or none of it matters. They'd ask me deeper questions sometimes and I always took the time to discuss with them what I knew or what I didn't know, no matter what the topic was. That's what I wanted as a teenager. I also think that those girls are already making huge decisions in their lives (relationship-wise anyway) so I think they ought to be treated like adults and given more, not less information. (I know this is somewhat contradictory, I mean, they are being irresponsible, but still those decisions they're making will affect them forever, so why treat them as children? If they chose to do things which are adult in nature, they should be treated as adults.) Which is a point that carries across to all YM and YW, I think we don't give them enough information. And how can we expect any depth of learning to occur if all we ever do is cake walk around things??

I've actually been thinking of this article lately. And it really bothers me. Basically it talks about how the new adult age is 22-25 not 18 or so like it used to be. Really??? What a bunch of babies. That's my inflammatory rhetoric for the day.

Here's my plan for raising my kids. I'm going to move to Argentina, put my kids in a private Catholic school, and tell them that they belong to the only true church and that they need to act according to it's teachings, and not misbehave and ruin the example they could set for all their Catholic friends and nuns and such, and thus force them to stand out and stand up for their beliefs. Hee. Hee. Okay, maybe that's a bit extreme, but honestly, my biggest fear for my children is not if they paint fingernails every week in YW's but solely that they'll be sheep and just follow trends and friends, in or out of the church.

And now that I've spent two hours here with very poor grammar and probably didn't make any sense, I need to go do some work. Chao, amigas.

couple more thoughts

re: facebook---I don't really use facebook (I have an account and accept friend requests etc., but don't go on there much---mostly because it was causing me to dislike/lose respect for a lot of people I had otherwise liked; people write stupid things on facebook! :)) and haven't interacted with the YW on there.  I don't really see a need for it.  However, texting is something I've used with the YW pretty often.  I didn't have texting on my phone and had rarely if ever used it before this calling, but now I have it and love that way of getting in touch with the YW (those who have their own phones, which isn't all of them).  They respond fast and it's easy.

re: not telling them they are "the greatest generation"---totally agree, in fact I gave a lesson recently on how they aren't the greatest generation. :)  Not in those exact words (though I did use that as an attention-getter)---but I did talk about the fact that they need to actually BE great, and do BETTER, rather than just think smugly how "chosen" and special they are.  I also gave a lesson after camp about how spiritual experiences mean nothing if we don't follow them up with action (I referenced the talk by Elder Holland, "Cast not away therefore your confidence"---awesome talk) and how often after times of emotional/spiritual high, we can experience temptation and trial which we need to get through by ACTING on what we felt and were prompted to do.  Oh yes, and all of us have the girls call us by "Sister ___"---that's a rule from our bishop anyway, but I endorse it!  So I guess I am on the same wavelength as some of you.  You may now send all your wonderful daughters to be in my YW group. :)  I really like your Miriam, Andrea; when will she be 12?  She's  only 8 or 9 maybe?

re: Andrea's comment "My hysterics come from my deep maternal insecurities. What am I doing as a mother to help my children develop testimonies turns into an agonized, "Help me here--it takes a village!!!" Instead of receiving that support I am explaining to my children why the speaker's clothes are not modest and why no, it is definitely not okay to say that, and why are they having a party in primary on the Sabbath????"---I have felt this too.  I think I always tend to feel like I'm more competent than other people (prideful, I know; I'm trying to fight it) so I get especially impatient when people seem inefficient or sloppy or lazy or too worldly or whatever.  But one more thing that just occurred to me.  When I hear stories of other wards' youth programs (like the ones Misfit cites), or other "horror stories" people tell about their ward activites, crazy bishops, etc., I often feel depressed and worried about the future of the church.  But with my own wards, even though sometimes I get annoyed with various people or think they are doing things the wrong way (like I think my stake president is kind of weird and he is always coming up with these strange policies, etc.)---I generally don't get that overall depressed/helpless/hopeless feeling.  Like, I look around in ward council in my ward now and I feel optimistic, like there is no problem we can't solve together, because I KNOW all these people are there because they love God and want to serve Him and do what's right.  I feel like we might individually make mistakes, but we will learn from each other and keep each other in line and the ward will progress.  We talk ALL THE TIME in that meeting about how to better share our testimonies, how to become like Zion, how to deepen the YWs' testimonies, bearing powerful testimony as part of our lessons, how to keep our YM firm and make them better missionaries, etc.  We're all on that same page.  It's just very reassuring and makes me less inclined to panic about the future.  So I guess it could be
a.) I have just been lucky to be in exceptionally good wards where the horror stories don't happen, and most ward councils would NOT give me that reassuring feeling
or b.) my wards are pretty typical, and the panic comes when you are hearing about vague, generic "other people" and you don't actually KNOW those people.  But if you did know them, you would know their good as well as their bad qualities, so you wouldn't be so horrified.  You would think, "Oh that Sister Johnson, I can't believe she thought it was a good idea to have an American Idol party, but she does love the girls and I love the way she makes them see how fun marriage can be" or whatever.
What do you think?  Wrong?  should I be more alarmist?

Quote

I have this little thing written on a scrap of paper in my wallet but absolutely no reference...

"Opportunities to serve lead to spiritual experiences, which leads to committed members".

This is supposed to be a reactivation tool, but I think it applies to all ages and stages.

from kelly  If they really want to be there, they will rise up and meet the standard.
Yes!  I just wanted to say I agree with this.  We don't need to "dumb down" our youth activities for those who may or may not be coming anyway.  Love it!

from Andrea The worst part is that with leaders trying so hard to be friends the cliquishness and meanness of the girls escalated rapidly and dramatically.
Thus my fear of Facebook and leaders being "friends" with their youth.  For some reason that has bothered me that youth and leaders  are "on Facebook" together.  Is that weird to anyone else?  One leader said they liked it because when a YW doesn't show up she can look on Facebook to see where she was.  Why not just ask her?  Marilyn, have you seen a benefit with Facebook in your calling?  Do you use it?  I just wonder.....

from Andrea (I do agree with Misfit that we talk too much about how great our youth is without any great behavior to back it up.)
I recently recognized this in my own home with my almost 12 year old boy (gasp!!!).  There comes a time when the youth just start expecting the blessings of being older (entitlement) without having more work and responsibilities to show for the extra blessings they get.  They're praised for being amazing when they're just acting with mediocrity.  I, too heard how wonderful I was all growing up from leaders and parents I think it created a fear of making mistakes in my life.  Thus, I look to the talk by Elder Robbins, What Manner of Men (and Women) Ought Ye to Be when praising my children and raising them with confidence in themselves (not false adoration for being so wonderful and also criticism when they fall below my false expectation as well).  I don't know if that makes sense or even applies to what we are saying, but it's what came out of my head just now. :-)