The Theme:

The theme for 2013 is “Stand ye in holy places.” It comes from a Mormon book of scripture called the Doctrine and Covenants. The full verse is: “Stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come; for behold, it cometh quickly, saith the Lord” (Doctrine and Covenants 87:8).

The theme will remind teenagers that the gospel of Jesus Christ is an all-day everyday part of life. Wherever we find ourselves we have to keep our standards with us and not let the world drag us down into a world without standards. Teens will work to prepare for the day when Jesus Christ returns.

A webpage is available to help you study the theme. You’ll find videos, posters, t-shirt designs, and even a free downloadable album of music entirely written by teenagers. You’ll also find thoughts posted by other teens on the theme.

New Learning Program for Church Classes

The way you’ll learn in your classes is all-new. Sunday School, Young Women and Young Men, and Seminary will all be coordinated so you’re following a theme each month.

Your leaders and teachers will become mentors, guiding you while you teach yourself the gospel. If you and your classmates decide you need another week on that topic, you’re free to take it. If there are parts of the topic you have special concerns about, you’ll deal with them. You’ll be using the current prophets and apostles to learn what the church teaches today and you’ll have the opportunity to discuss some of the big issues going on around you. Instead of using a manual written years ago, you’ll learn from what is being said right now. Your teachers will take the study guide from the Internet, so the material can be updated at any time.

Let’s look at the Young Women’s monthly theme for September. The boys will have the same theme, which is commandments. The lesson materials for the teachers suggest seven possible topics. Since you’ll only have four or five Sundays, the teacher will choose the topics she feels are the most important for you—or you might ask the teacher to cover one of them you’re concerned about.

One suggested topic is to discuss how to be in the world, but not of it. This means to figure out how to live the gospel even when the people around you aren’t and to keep your standards high no matter what the world tries to tell you.

The lesson guidelines for teachers include a list of scriptures, talks by church leaders, and videos that could be used. The teacher will choose the ones she feels are best for your class.

Every lesson starts with a discussion of the last week’s lesson. At the end of each class, you’ll be asked to try to have an experience with the topic of the day’s lesson. Then, the next week, you’ll have a chance to share what you did or what else you learned as you studied and thought about the topic.

Then it’s on to the new topic of the day. The guidelines offer several suggestions for ways to introduce the topic that your teacher can choose from. Let’s suppose she decides to talk about what the lesson title means and how Jesus set the example. Instead of telling you what it means, she will ask you what you think it means. She will ask you what examples from Jesus’ life show that He was doing those things. You’ll teach each other through your comments, thoughts, and questions.

One suggestion is to watch some of the recommended videos and then talk about what they show us about living the gospel. Another is to look up some scriptures for clues. Students might also decide to make a list of commandments some teens find difficult to live and then look in For the Strength of Youth for answers.

Some lessons also use Mormon Ads or include a craft project just to break things up a little—for instance, making a poster for your room. The better the teacher knows you, the better she can plan good experiences for you.

The lessons end with students deciding what they’ve learned and whether or not they want to discuss this again next week. They commit to having an experience with the topic over the coming week and to share it with others. The weeknight activity might be related to the lesson learned on Sunday.

These lessons require the students to really participate. They need to come to come to class ready to discuss the topic and they need to participate with questions, comments, and ideas. How well these new lessons go will be up to the students, who will choose the path by their own participation. When you come to the topic feeling spiritual and curious, ready to really dig in and learn, the entire class will be more intellectually and spiritually exciting.

In history class I learned that the American Civil War was a brother against brother war. Then my dad told me that in my family, that was literally true. Kentucky, where my ancestors lived, was a border state and people fought on both sides. Some families even sent one son to each side to increase the likelihood one of them would come home alive. After that, when my teachers talked about the war, I paid closer attention. That war affected my family in important ways.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members are sometimes nicknamed Mormons, has just launched a new website to help teenagers learn how to trace their family history. Since it’s meant for teens, it is a little more fun than many of the serious adult sites. More will be added in the future, but right now, you can find a lot of tools to help you get started.

David A. Bednar, a Mormon apostle, gave a speech on genealogy for teenagers. He pointed out teens have great typing skills from texting and using social media and chat. He asked them to put those skills to good use by doing their family history and also to teach older family and neighbors how to use their computers to do genealogy. This new website can help you learn how to do it so you can help others, including your own friends, to get it done.

You have to register for the account if you want to put your genealogy online. However, you can watch the training videos and read the articles without registering. Right now, while the site is still small, there are videos showing you how to get started on your history. Then you can learn how to help others get their family history done and share your own experiences to motivate other teens. Watch some videos or read some comments by other teens who are doing a little online time travel through their family.

The first person whose history you need to look into is your own. Write your story for others to read someday. Put all your information into a chart and then ask your parents for their information. Next go to your grandparents and ask them. Once you run out of living relatives, your older family members can probably tell you about the next generation back. From there, you’ll be able to search online for information on your family. Remember what you learned in school though—verify your information. Some people post genealogy online that isn’t accurate. Look for records and make sure it’s right.

You’ll find that even some of the official records aren’t accurate. For instance, census records are fun to look at because they give you a little snapshot of the family at that moment. But the information is only as accurate as the person who gave it to them—and sometimes it was a neighbor who gave it. When I check census records, I find the names spelled differently and sometimes even different names because the census taker wrote it down wrong or someone started going by his middle name. In one family, a woman decided to tell the census taker she was five years younger than she really was and in every census after that one she was five years younger. If I hadn’t kept searching until I found her birth record and census’ from when she was younger, I’d have had the wrong date.

Sometimes genealogy can seem a little boring, but remember there are real people behind those names and dates. They lived real lives and had real feelings. Sometimes I put their lives into a timeline to get a feel for how their life worked. Then I start noticing things I didn’t see before. For instance, in one family, the father died when the children were very young. Then the mother died. Now they were orphaned. I started wondering how they felt and where they all went when the last parent died. Some were raised by siblings. How would you feel if your older brother or sister had to become your parent? How would you feel if you had to raise your little brothers and sisters alone? Now those kids were real to me. When I read about what happened to them, I try to imagine how they felt about it. I also like to read about famous events that happened in their lives and imagine  how those events affected their lives.

Don’t waste any time getting started. The sooner you start, the more older relatives there are to help you. Try to collect everyone’s life story while they can still give it to you. You’ll get a better understanding of who you are and how you got that way.

Marissa buys albums, but then she goes through them and listens to every word in every song. She deletes any song that chases away the Holy Spirit. She says no single song is worth losing the companionship of the Holy Ghost. For her, music is a strong spiritual influence and she says the words of a song will influence her actions, beliefs, and spirituality.

Watch the video and listen to Marissa talk about how music influences her. Then go listen to your own music library. What do you need to remove from your library?

It’s really a matter of priorities. I can’t think of any song that is more important to me than God is. My life won’t be ruined by getting rid of a song, even if I paid for it, but it will be ruined if I get rid of God or put other things first.

A really good article to read on this subject is A Closer Look at Popular Music by Lex de Azevedo. He’s a musician and although the article is pretty long, it has some really great information about the power of music. A lot of young people (I said it myself as a teenager before I became a Mormon and was shown the other side of the story) say the words don’t affect them because they don’t really listen to them. And yet, most of them are singing along to the words. We just can’t prevent that from entering into our minds and influencing who we become. Anything that stays in our head becomes a part of us, and the more we hear and sing that immoral things are okay, the more likely we are to believe it.

The author of this article says there is good and bad in every type of music, so it makes no sense to attack a particular type of music. Listen to what Brother Azevedo says about this:

In recent years, studies have substantiated these ancient ideas, demonstrating music’s effect on a myriad of bodily functions: pulse rate, respiration rate, blood pressure, galvanic skin responses, brain-wave impulses, muscle responses, finger coordination, and reading speed and comprehension.¹ One study suggests that certain rhythms actually have a weakening effect on the muscles of the body.²

A force so powerful that it can influence our hearts, our glands, and our muscles is a force to be reckoned with. The influence is significant enough that we should take care what kind of music we allow into our homes.

Music also has great power on our emotions. Music has been called the universal language because it speaks directly to our emotions. And our emotions and feelings influence our actions.”

He suggests we start paying more attention to the words in our music and also in how the music itself makes us feel. Even when you take the words away, some types of music can cause us to have inappropriate feelings. If you wouldn’t feel comfortable listening to the music if Jesus showed up and wanted to join you, you shouldn’t listen to it at all. Imagine yourself explaining to Him why this music will bring you closer to Him. Can you do it? If not, and if you can’t feel the Holy Ghost while you’re listening, consider getting rid of it.

There are billions of songs in the world. No one song matters so much that it’s worth giving up everything for. One thing the author suggests is that you become familiar with lots of different kinds of music. You may need some time to get used to styles of music you never listened to before, but in time, you’ll find some of them grow on you. The more types of music you like, the easier it is to find something spiritually safe.

So, watch the video, read the article…and go check out your music collection.

Even though you are not here in the same room with me as I write, I am writing as if this is just you and me chatting.  One soul to another.

Mormon temples are sacred to Mormon beliefs.

I was recently thinking about myself and my experience with the LDS Temples. Perhaps this might be interesting to you if you never knew anyone who was “Mormon” before.  I am a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We are Christians who believe in the Jesus of the New Testament.

We believe that Jesus has walked in the temples of our time, although not very many people have ever seen him there. One man, James Talmage, was writing a book called Jesus the Christ many years ago. He told his granddaughter that as he was working, he saw Jesus in the Salt Lake City Temple. That was a long time ago. The book Mr. Talmage wrote is very good and has been used as a text book , I heard.

Before I ever went into a temple belonging to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I heard some hideous things, rumors, about what went on inside of there. Pure speculation, apparently.

Since I joined the church, I now have the opportunity to go inside the temple whenever I want. It is open most every day, from early in the morning until late in the evening. Currently, I only live about a mile from the temple, but I remember the days when I had to drive 4-6 hours to get to a temple.

The first time I went into a temple was in 1983. It was a wonderful spring day. Inside the temple we wear all white clothing and it feels so clean and fresh. Something happened to me on my first visit in the temple, though: I had a nosebleed. It was a complete surprise and I was afraid I was going to bleed directly onto the pure white clothing I had on. But fortunately, I was able to get a tissue right away, thus avoiding anything I might be embarrassed about.  The day continued fine and I went through a session where I learned a lot of things and was reminded of things I already knew. Most everything that I heard in the temple I had read before in the Holy Bible. It was really nice to hear it again, though, inside what is called The House of the Lord.

Since my first visit in the temple way back then, I have returned many times. It is a place where I can go to pray for something special or for someone who needs some prayers at that time. I have a lot of faith, so when I go I feel like God knows I am there. Oh, I know he loves me all the time. But I think he is extra happy when I come there to pray to him and to feel of the power of his presence.  I’m not saying it is anything weird, but it is like when you know that everything will be alright. It feels like you know that God is watching out for each one of us.

Sometimes when I am there, I learn something that I never could understand before. It seems like my eyes were covered with dark sunglasses in a dim room, but then the glasses are taken off and the room is brighter. It is like I kind of understood before, but now it is a “duh, of course!” moment.

There is a cafeteria in some of the temples where people who are planning to be there for a while can grab a bite to eat.  When I am inside the temple, I really like how everyone is so nice and since they are dressed in white, they all look like angels. A lot of seniors have time to go to the temple, so there is a lot of white hair and it looks really nice.

One more cool thing about being in the temple is nobody ever yells or shouts. It is more like everyone is being reverent and talking in hushed tones.  I don’t know if I could stay in there a long time every day since I am kind of a social talkative person, but it is really nice to be in there for a couple of hours at a time.

The time we spend in the temple is for us and for our ancestors. It is very rewarding to feel connected to those people in our family. When I was there being sealed to my Mom and Dad, it was a very strong feeling, like they were there and maybe a few angels, too, because it seemed like something bigger than just the few people in the room were there. You know that feeling when someone is there even though you can’t see them. It was like that multiplied.  Sealing is an ordinance that binds families together for life beyond this life.  The ultimate goal is for everyone to be sealed to their family eventually.  Sometimes on this earth we don’t like our family members that much. But if we could see them in their perfect form, we would probably want to bow down to them. And God sees them in their perfect form and their human form. So, I think that is probably what helps him to love everyone, even when they are being awful in this earthly life.

The temple is a wonderful place to go to get a better understanding on something, or to pray for those we love, or those we don’t love so that we can learn to love them and forgive them. And it is a place to take care of those important sealings.  Some people go to ask for health or for help with some particularly difficult problem.

But, I like to go just because. Just because it feels so nice and loving there and because I know God wants me there sometimes. One day I felt like he wanted me to go that very day, so I just changed my plans and went and a lot of my friends were there that same day and it seemed like a glorious party had been arranged. It was awesome!  Maybe someday you and I can meet in the temple!  That would be perfect!

Well, it probably does. As a teenager, you’ve already decided how you feel about yourself and your body, but you are also making new decisions on these subjects and you have more control over what you wear. These attitudes you’re developing started shaping when you were younger and they’re affecting how you live your life and how you look at yourself right now. It also affects how other people see you.

One group of researchers showed adults pictures of  girls. The people who looked at these pictures assumed the girls who were dressed immodestly were less intelligent and less competent. Now, that might not seem fair to you and your answer might be that people shouldn’t judge you that way. You’re probably right, but that isn’t really the point. The point is that you don’t get to choose how other people see you. They’re going to see whatever they decide to see and you’re going to pay the price for it.

Whether you like it or not, there are times it will matter to you how other people see you. You don’t want your teachers to see you as less intelligent, for instance. If your grade is on the border between two grades, the teacher will decide whether to give you the higher or lower grade and you want to be seen as intelligent and competent. Their opinion of you might impact how they grade a paper. If you have a job, you want your boss to see you that as a competent person as well. For that matter, you would probably want everyone to know you’re smart and good at things.

Girls who wear immodest clothing are also at a higher risk for eating disorders and poor body image. They train themselves to think their job in life is to be physically appealing to men, and not in an appropriate way. It’s important for girls to understand their personalities, their character, and their intelligence are what are important about them. These are the parts of themselves they need to spend the most time developing. While it’s important to be neat and to take care of the body you were given, it is not really who you are. You don’t want people thinking your body is all there is to you.

When one of my daughters was a preteen, she had an eighteen-year-old teacher at church just for the summer. The teacher would be going off to college in the fall, but in the meantime, she had a big impact on those kids she taught. She was pretty and really smart. She had been a cheerleader and homecoming queen. She told the class she had never found it necessary to dress immodestly to be popular. She wanted people to like her for who she was inside. She wore fashionable clothes and had pretty hairstyles and nice makeup, but her hair, clothes, and makeup were modest and not attention-grabbing. She had a huge amount of self-esteem because she knew people liked her for all the right reasons. She put her energy into being a moral, kind, and friendly person, not a sexy one and people loved her. She was very popular with her own peers, but also with teachers, other adults, and children.

Grace, who is 13, says dressing modestly makes her feel comfortable. She doesn’t have to worry that she is showing parts of her that shouldn’t be showing. Like a lot of teens today, she echoes the popular phrase, “Modest is hottest!”

Lila (17) says she dresses modestly because it’s uncomfortable to be immodest. “It makes me feel like people respect me.”

How would it affect your life if you know people liked you just for who you were? Would the friends you have today and the boys you date still feel the same way about you if you wore modest clothes, or suddenly became poor and couldn’t afford the latest fashions? Would they still care about you if your standards were really high and you didn’t want to do some of the things they did because of it? What if you had an accident and it affected how you look? Would your friends stick around?

Mormon teens are taught to be modest in their clothing. That includes not wearing clothing that has sexy sayings or that is too tight or emphasizes the wrong things. It isn’t only about covering up. One speaker told teens if you’re dressed properly, people will notice your face first (assuming it isn’t because you’re wearing too much makeup or something.)

Being dressed modestly tells the world you feel confident about yourself and that you don’t need to show off your body to get attention. You’re worthy of attention just because of the amazing person you are.

Of course, modesty isn’t just for girls. The article I’m writing about was about girls, so that is where I’m focused today, but the same principle applies to boys. Everyone benefits from being dressed modestly.

Take a look at this quote from Silvia H. Allred. Notice what she says about the example God set for us:

The doctrine behind modesty begins with our knowledge that we are children of God, created in His image (see Moses 2:27). Our bodies are sacred gifts from Heavenly Father and have specific purposes that He has planned. As grateful recipients, we acknowledge this gift by treating our bodies as He has asked us to (see D&C 88:33). We learn to train, control, and bridle our bodies and their physical uses to become like Heavenly Father.

From the beginning, the Lord has asked His children to cover their bodies. After Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit, their eyes were opened and they became aware that they were naked. Adam and Eve tried to cover themselves with simple aprons made of fig leaves. But the aprons were not enough, so the Lord made them more modest coats of skins. (See Genesis 3:7, 21.)

God had a higher standard then, just as He does now. His standards are not those of the world.” (See Silvia H. Allred, “Modesty: A Timeless Principle for All,” Ensign, Jul 2009, 28–32.)

Modesty isn’t about people trying to control you or about being ashamed of your body. It actually shows more pride in your body because when you know your body was created by Heavenly Father in His image, and you are proud of who you are, you don’t want to treat it in a disrespectful way. You don’t have any desire to invite other people to view your body in a disrespectful way, either. You are content to use it for the exact purposes for which God created it. You honor and respect yourself and you work to enhance your personality, your character, your spirit, and your talents because you know you are a child of God.

When Paris was fourteen, Mormon missionaries were tracting through the neighborhood. This means they were going door to door asking people if they’d like to learn about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is the real name of the church. Mormon is just a nickname.

His friends teased him about having two white men coming to the house, thinking they were police officers. Paris wasn’t interested in the gospel message the missionaries were giving his family, but finally the missionaries told him that if he wanted to know what was true, he needed to ask God, who is the only source of truth. So Paris did. The answer he got was a feeling of joy, love, and peace, a new experience for him.

How did this change Paris’ life? As he built his testimony and learned more about the gospel of Jesus Christ, he started to understand he was on earth for a reason and God had a plan for him. His brother had died at age eighteen and he hadn’t felt there was much hope for himself either. Now he knew differently. He knew who he was—a child of God—and why he was here.

His mother had lost two sons but she can see she isn’t going to lose Paris. He’s back in school, doing well, and making something of himself. He says he does not want to blame his circumstances for anything—he’s better than his circumstances. In fact, he feels the poverty and the homelessness, the grief of losing his siblings and having a father who was arrested…all those things that often make people give up…have actually made him stronger and helped him become the good man he is. He hopes he can help other people who face similar challenges to move beyond those trials and into something better, just as he is doing.

Meet Paris for yourself. He’s a man worth meeting.

First, a little about Shannon. Then I’ll tell you one of the things I find really impressive about her.

Shannon Hale is a Mormon who lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. She was the middle child in a family of five children and she always loved making up stories. At first, she’d act them out with her sisters, but in fourth grade, she learned how to write her stories on paper for others to read and that’s when she decided to become a writer. She was pretty sensitive, so she found the social part of grade school hard and ended up crying at home a lot. Things got better, though. In junior high school she was on the staff for the school literary magazine and met her first professional author, Dean Hughes. She was also in drama class, even though she never got chosen for the school plays.

She enjoyed high school a lot more. She felt her school was pretty diverse, which was interesting to her, and unlike most schools, it was not filled with cliques. Here’s something interesting she said about high school: “In movies and books, a teen’s life often involves drinking, sex, or drugs. It sure didn’t in mine. While I think it’s important to have stories about all kinds of people, I think it’s also important to acknowledge the other side. I did not drink alcohol or take drugs or have sex with boyfriends because I chose not to. I did have a lot of fun, though.” (See The Official Site of Shannon Hale.)

In high school, still writing and acting (but getting small parts now) she met her husband. She had a big crush on him, but he didn’t have a big crush on her. She went to school right near home, because she’d been sick for a long time during her senior year, and Dean went off to Washington State.

Shannon started out majoring in both drama and English. Even though she loved acting, she eventually decided she would rather be a writer, because you can’t act unless someone hires you, but you can always write. She loved books, and decided to become a writer. However, she hadn’t finished anything she started and she wasn’t sure what kinds of books she wanted to write. But she at least had a goal now.

She took a year and a half off to be a Mormon missionary. This is something she chose to do, not something she had to do. You pay your own way and you don’t choose where you will go, so opening the envelope is pretty exciting. She was sent to Paraguay and had to learn Spanish. She was assigned native companions (partners you share your apartment with and work with) and was determined to live like a native while she was there, so she could really learn the culture. She learned to focus on other people, not herself.

While she was on her mission, Dean wrote to her regularly. When she returned home, he was living in Utah again and they started dating seriously, but they broke up after about a year. She decided to go to graduate school out of state.

Here’s another interesting thing: The best writers got chosen to be teaching assistants and they got free tuition. She wasn’t  chosen and in fact, she was the only person who never did get chosen, meaning they thought she was the worst writer in the whole program. Despite that, she is the only writer in that group with a lot of best sellers and big awards. So, if you don’t seem like the best in your field yet, don’t give up. School isn’t the final decision maker in whether or not you can make it in what you want to do.

Even though the school didn’t think she was very good at writing, she loved her time there. She got back together with Dean and ended up marrying him. She started the book that would become The Goose Girl. It took her two years to get it written, starting over a few times and doing a lot of editing. Eventually, she got an agent and the book got sent to publishers, who didn’t like it. It was rejected nine times, but in the end, the same company that first published Harry Potter bought her book. And I’ll bet the other publishers are sorry they turned it down! It’s her most popular book.

I find Shannon Hale’s writing to be very elegant. I’d love to be able to write that way. But even beyond her amazing writing, what I really admire about her is that she has high standards and sticks to them, even in her writing. At the back of The Goose Girl there is an interview with Shannon. She said she sees a lot more racy books for teens and that her book was turned down because that stuff wasn’t in her books. She says she does not like writing about sex, so her books are sometimes seen as better for younger audiences, but she does have a few adult books as well. Sometimes people think they need to compromise to make it in the “real world.” Teens think they can’t be popular unless they lower their standards. One of my daughters came home from church one week telling me her eighteen-year-old teacher, who had been homecoming queen and head cheerleader, told them she never compromised. She didn’t feel she needed to compromise her standards to be popular, so she never did. I admire that in a person. It seems like Shannon Hale is that kind of person, so she is someone I admire, not just as a writer, but as a person.

Do you have a favorite celebrity who doesn’t compromise his or her standards?

Mormon leaders have talked about this a lot. Mormon is an informal nickname some people use when they’re talking about members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Most Mormons actually call themselves LDS (Latter-day Saints), not Mormons, although the Church has accepted that Mormon is more popular among people who aren’t Mormon. It refers to the Book of Mormon, which Mormons use along with the Bible.

One Mormon leader, Russell M. Nelson, explains that there is a difference between tolerance and tolerating. Knowing that difference can help us figure out how to live in a very diverse world. He suggests we look at Jesus’ life to help us understand how we should react to people who live lives we know are immoral.

When I read the New Testament, one of the things I notice is that Jesus didn’t just hang out with other Christians. He had a lot of friends and he spent a lot of time with people who didn’t live the commandments or who were considered inferior by others. I notice that he treated these people with respect.

For instance, most people in his time wanted nothing to do with Samarians. But Jesus intentionally traveled through Samaria and stopped to share the gospel with a Samarian woman at a well. He treated her with dignity and she responded by becoming a missionary for the gospel.

We can strengthen others by standing for truth and rigteousness.

You might remember the story about the woman everyone wanted to stone because she had sinned. They brought her to Jesus, hoping, no doubt, He would be shocked and horrified by her sin and maybe even help with—or at least approve—the stoning. What did He do instead? He suggested that the person in the group who had never sinned throw the first stone. Of course, He was the only person who fit that description, but He had no desire to stone her. Once the others, embarrassed, had left, Jesus spoke to her kindly, telling her He was not going to pass final judgment on her.

Even though He sent her on her way, it is really important to notice what else He did. He told her not to sin anymore. He didn’t say, “It’s her life. I need to be tolerant of how she chooses to live it.” What she had done was a sin and He made sure she understood that. However, He wasn’t willing to kill her over it or decide how she would be judged at the end of her life. By telling he she had sinned, but sending her away with a commandment to stop, He gave her a chance to repent, to change her life before she died and faced final judgment.

Jesus never did just accept sin because it was the politically correct thing to do. When He saw sin, He put a stop to it. He cleared the temple. He spoke up even to political leaders and powerful community people. He did not tolerate sin. But He was tolerant, in that He treated people who sinned with dignity. He could love them as people without accepting their sins. He didn’t say “You have a right to live any way you want, even if it hurts you and even if it hurts others.”

There is a difference between the sin and the sinner. You’ve probably heard people say we must condemn the sin, but love the sinner. This is what Jesus did.

Some sins hurt other people and some only hurt the sinner directly (although all of society suffers when sin is in the world) but we know we can’t just let people do whatever they want to do because it’s “their life.” The reason we have laws is because we understand our country works better when we set standards and make people live by them. The reason parents have rules is because it is their job to set standards and to protect their children.

When you were little, your parents didn’t let you cross the street alone because they knew it would put you into physical danger. Today, they might have rules about coming home at a certain time or even about what kinds of friends you can have. They aren’t trying to ruin your fun. They are trying to keep you safe. Sometimes they are keeping you physically safe, but other times, they are keeping you morally safe. God is that kind of parent.

The thing is that this life is only a small part of your entire life. The longest parts of your life happened before you were born, when you lived with God and started becoming who you are now, and the time after you die. After you die, you’ll live forever, and how you live depends a lot on the choices you make today. Jesus taught over and over that there will be a judgment day when the sins we don’t’ repent of will be punished. He said that only people who kept His commandments would get to be with God after death. Your parents are trying their best to help you live in a way that will allow you to live with God someday. That means they sometimes make rules that are protecting your eternal life.

So how do you apply all this when you’re out in the world surrounded by people who are living lives you know are wrong? Let’s look at a few examples and wonder how Jesus would handle it.

One thing Mormons do is to make it clear that temptations and behavior aren’t the same thing. We can’t choose what we are tempted by or inclined towards. We can choose how we act. An alcoholic who is still drinking is committing a sin. If he stops drinking, but still craves alcohol, he is not sinning—as long as he doesn’t take a drink. He can control the actions, not the cravings. Homosexual tendencies are not a sin; homosexual behavior is. We can be kind and respectful when we are with people who are homosexuals because they are God’s children and therefore deserving of respect. We don’t have to respect their sins, however, nor do we have to encourage them. Jesus didn’t and so we shouldn’t. We may have friends who smoke and we will love them and treat them kindly, but we don’t have to let them smoke around us. We can love our friends who drink, but we don’t have to—and must not—serve alcohol at our parties just to “prove” we are tolerant.

If you had friends who were doing things you knew was very dangerous—dating an abusive boyfriend, for instance, or drinking, or going into dangerous neighborhoods–you would try your best to stop them. Spiritual danger is more serious than physical danger. You can show love to a person and treat him or her with respect while not respecting those dangerous choices.

At school and in your daily activities, you will meet a lot of people who live in ways you know are wrong. You don’t have to stay at a party where teens are drinking just to show you are tolerant. You don’t even have to tell them they are welcome to live that way. You do have to treat them kindly, help them when they are in trouble, and be respectful of them as people—but you don’t have to respect their sins.

Next time, we’re going to talk about tolerance in terms of religion—how do we live in a religiously diverse world?

Mormons in Uganda

Throughout Uganda, work is being done by religious groups to help out and many people have moved above poverty.

The musical hints that religion can’t do anything to help with the serious problems of the world. In the last article, we showed how basic faith can make a big difference in the life of someone who is suffering. Today we’re going to look at what churches are doing to try to make poverty a thing of the past. Since this is a Mormon site, we’ll be talking about what Mormons are doing, but lots of faith-based groups are doing similar types of work. God’s people don’t just preach the gospel—they work to take care of God’s children.

In 2009, missionaries got together in Uganda, not to preach the gospel, but to just live it. A lot of refugees were pouring into the country because of dangerous rebel activities in the Congo. These refugees often arrived with nothing at all. The missionaries worked long hours to put together emergency supply kits for them, including blankets, cooking pots, rice, sugar, salt, cooking oil, soap, and mosquito nets. The Church had, at the time of the article linked to on the word missionary at the start of the paragraph, delivered more than 7,000 pounds of food to refugee camps, as well as blankets, cooking pots, and farming tools. Musa Ecweru, Uganda’s Minister of State for Disaster Preparedness, received some of these kits and said, ““Our good friends, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, go about quietly, without a lot of publicity, helping the needy people of Uganda,”

One serious problem in Uganda is that too many babies die. Often their lives could be saved if someone knew what to do for a baby who was not breathing at birth. The Mormons put together a program to train midwives and others in neonatal resuscitation. This means helping babies to breathe if they aren’t. The minister of health in Uganda took the class himself and he told the doctors that every time a baby dies in his country, it creates a 100,000-dollar deficit in his country’s economy. That means it hurts the economy that much. In the first six months after the May 2006 training ended, 646 babies were saved from death. How good is your math? Figure out how much that single effort by the church helped the Ugandan economy. When the economy improves, poverty is easier to fight.

Read how Mormons are saving babies from dying.

Mormons have a huge humanitarian aid program. This program isn’t just for Mormons. It’s for everyone in the village or area where they are working. They bring clean water into villages that never had it. Can you imagine drinking dirty water or having to walk hours to get water at all? That’s how a lot of people around the world live until the church goes in and helps the people to create a clean water source. They provide wheelchairs, glasses, vision treatments, farming help…all sorts of things that make life easier for those who are suffering. They also do things that will help people learn to help themselves so they won’t always have to depend on outsiders.

Some people might think it’s pointless to send missionaries into areas where there is a lot of poverty. But God loves all His children, no matter how poor they are. He wants them to know about Him, but He also wants them to be taken care of and made self-sufficient. For that, He needs His other children, the one with greater privileges, to go away from their comfortable homes and get to work. The Mormons have humanitarian missionaries in addition to their regular missionaries.

But it isn’t just missionaries helping out. Ordinary teenagers in Mormon churches also pitch in to make Uganda a better place. In their own communities they assemble kits like the ones mentioned above or go out into their villages to make something better. One group of teens in the US donated their old clothing to a church program. Their clothes were sent to a prison in Uganda. The women there were not given anything to wear and so they had to remain undressed until some teens in Utah decided to donate some of their clothing.

Take a look at the picture at the top of this article. It’s of a Mormon family in Uganda. The musical portrays Ugandans as primitive and stupid. Do you think they got Uganda right? How would you feel if all people in your country were portrayed the way Ugandans are treated in the musical? It might have made the musical’s creators feel “cool” to make fun of people, but Christians know we don’t treat others with that complete lack of respect. Nor do we just goof around being silly when there is serious work to be done, despite what the musical suggests.  While there are some people in Uganda who are poor, more and more are learning the skills and getting the health they need to move on—and Mormons and other religious people are helping to make that happen.