Teenage Mormon girls can now do the Personal Progress Program on the Internet and leaders and parents can monitor it there.
Personal progress is a fun program for girls in the Mormon youth program, called Young Women. The girls in the program are given a list of goals to accomplish—some are required and some are chosen from a number of choices. The goals help them learn more about their religion, God, and Jesus Christ and help them live their lives better. They spend time preparing to be adults, as well. You don’t have to be Mormon to do the program, although for now, you do have to be Mormon to keep track of your progress on the Internet. They’re working to fix that in the near future. However, if you aren’t Mormon, you can get to all the materials free on the Internet and then print out a record sheet to use. To get an award, you’ll need to attend Mormon Young Women’s programs so you’re assigned a leader to help you. Your parents will also be able to help you with the program. Any Mormon you know will be happy to take you to a Young Women’s meeting and introduce you to people.
The Website for the program explains what girls gain from participating:
“As you participate in Personal Progress, you join with thousands of other young women who are striving to come unto Christ and “stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places” (Mosiah 18:9). Counsel with your parents, and prayerfully choose goals that will help you cultivate feminine attributes, strengthen your testimony, and reach your divine potential.” (Personal Progress)
There is an award, although the award is not the real purpose of the program. The real reward, of course, is what you learn and how you improve your life as you participate. However, the award is treasured by girls as a reminder of all they’ve accomplished. To earn the award, you have to do all of these things between the ages of twelve and eighteen:
1. Attend sacrament meeting regularly (where possible). Sacrament Meeting is the regular worship service for Mormons, held each Sunday if the Church is available in that area. (The Church is located in most countries of the world.)
2. Live the standards in For the Strength of Youth. This is a booklet for teenagers outlining the moral standards God expects of young people—and in fact, all people. The bishop (similar to a pastor) over your assigned congregation will interview you to be sure you have done this.
3. Complete the value experiences and value project for each of the eight values. I’ll talk about this in a few minutes. These are the goals you set for yourself as you work in the program.
4. Keep a personal journal.
5. Attend seminary or participate in independent study (where available). Seminary is a class held each morning before school (in most areas) where teenagers fourteen and older study the scriptures. It’s a great way to start the day off right, even though it can be hard to get up so early.
6. Read the Book of Mormon regularly. The Book of Mormon is a book of scripture used along with the Bible. Mormon teens study the Bible, but are also expected to learn the Book of Mormon well.
7. Record your testimony of the Savior Jesus Christ.
What are those values mentioned in step 3? These are the heart of the program. There are eight values teenage girls are expected to live by during their lifetimes. They are: faith, divine nature, individual worth, knowledge, choice and accountability, good works, integrity, and virtue. The girls study what it means to live the values. Then they accomplish things that help them learn more or put them into practice. Finally, they choose a project to work on that gives them more in-depth experience.
Let’s look at the value of integrity to see how it works. You can read the requirements for this value here: Integrity. The page begins by offering a Bible scripture to study: Job 27:5. “God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me.” The page then explains the basic promise you make when you tell God you are going to be a person with integrity: “I will have the moral courage to make my actions consistent with my knowledge of right and wrong.”
Now you start to learn more about it and to begin doing things that will make you a person with integrity. The first three steps are required. You can read about them in more detail on the page, but here is a summary:
- First, you’ll read the booklet on standards mentioned earlier and use your journal to make a list of the standards you are supposed to keep. You’ll think about what it means to do this and why you want to do it. Then, for one month, you’ll live according to those standards and record in your journal how it affects your life.
- Next, you’re going to evaluate your current level of integrity, using the standards mentioned in the more detailed explanation of the requirement. You’ll pray each day for help in having more integrity and set at least one goal to improve one aspect of your integrity. Then, of course, you’ll start to live your goal.
- Now you’re going to learn about integrity by studying the lives of other people in the scriptures. A list is provided for you to begin with and includes Esther, Job, and Daniel, as well as Jesus, of course. In your journal you’ll record how they lived their lives with integrity. Then you’ll try to think of a time you had to have courage to live with integrity and you’ll share the story with others.
By the time you’ve finished these three goals, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what integrity means and you’ll have started improving your own integrity. Now it’s time to personalize it. You’re offered four goals and you have to choose three. If there is something you really feel you need to work on that isn’t listed, you can create your own and have it approved by your parent or leader. The first choice involves looking up a dictionary definition of the word and then interviewing your mother, grandmother or another woman about what the word means to them and how they apply it. Then you’ll again work out new goals for strengthening your integrity.
Another choice is to study how not having integrity can hurt families and working on ways to make your family stronger. A third choice is to learn how to be a good example to others and make some changes that will make you a better example. Finally, you can learn how to fast—going without food or water for twenty-four hours once a month.
To finish up your study of integrity, you’re asked to think of a project that would take ten hours to complete and that would help you learn about or improve your integrity. An adult will approve the project, but you’ll be responsible for carrying it out.
You can see this program is a lot of work, but when you’re finished, you’ll be ready for the adult life you’re about to enter. You’ll be living the life God wants you to live.