“We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.”

Mormon teens have a theme this year and this year’s theme is I Believe. It’s focus is on this Article of Faith. Since it’s the longest one, it gives the teens a lot to work on. In the last article we talked about honesty, being true to yourself and your beliefs, and being chaste. The next item in the list is to be benevolent.

We don’t talk a lot about benevolence these days. You might find the word on a vocabulary test, but we don’t use it much. It means to be kind, compassionate, and caring. Benevolence is talked about in another part of this Article of Faith, where it says we believe in doing good to all men.

As a teenager, you have a lot of chances to do good to the people around you and to be benevolent. You’re surrounded by teenagers who are lonely or who have difficult lives. There are teenagers in your world who are hungry, or scared, or struggling to get through their classes. There are teenagers who don’t know Jesus Christ and teenagers who long for someone to listen and understand when they talk about their confusion over the world.

No one teenager can fix all the problems or help all the people who need help, but one teenager can make a huge difference. By choosing a few people, you can change that person’s world. When that person’s world is changed, it often changes other lives, too. You can’t tell how many lives will be changed because you made a small change in someone else’s life.

It isn’t just teenagers who need your help, either. Do you know a younger child who needs a mentor—someone to be a good example and to make sure they don’t grow up and land on a dangerous path? Do you know an elderly person who needs a cheerful young friend to drop by for a visit every now and then? Do you have a teacher at school, home, or church who could use a compliment about her teaching?

What about your own family? Could your parents benefit from a little benevolence? Without a doubt, they can. Parents do a lot of things teens don’t see or appreciate until they’re adults. It’s a tough job, but one kind word or act of service from their child can make everything so much easier. Why wait until you’re an adult to thank your parents for something they’ve done? It will mean even more if you do it today.

The next belief Mormon teens are working on in this Article of Faith is virtue. Virtue is another word that doesn’t get talked about much. Being virtuous, in a religious sense, means to live the way Jesus Christ taught us to live. It covers all the other things in this Article of Faith. A virtuous person won’t watch immoral movies or listen to music that has inappropriate words. A virtuous person puts down a book and gets rid of it as soon as she realizes it is not morally clean. Being virtuous requires us to be kind to others and to keep the commandments of God. Really, it means acting the way you’d act if Jesus were in the room watching you—which He is.

In the next article, we’ll talk about the last part, based on something Paul said in the New Testament of the Bible.

One day, Madison’s cousin was reading an article about some girls who helped a disabled teenager earn her medallion. She began thinking about Madison and wondered if there was a way she and the other girls in her congregation could help Madison earn her medallion. However, Madison couldn’t do most of the requirements, even with help. The girls decided they would earn her medallion in proxy. Each girl would choose one requirement to fulfill for Madison.

They talked to their leaders, who then talked to their own leaders to get permission. It was decided the girls could do this as long as they completed their own requirement for their medallion first and then did another one—or the same one twice where choices weren’t offered—for Madison. They couldn’t do it once and count it twice.

Some girls chose very long sections. One girl cooked dinner for her family for two weeks. Another read the entire Book of Mormon. Each girl did these things to help a girl in their youth group receive an award that is highly cherished by Mormon teens because it is hard to earn. They are publicly recognized for their accomplishments, and now, when the recognitions were given, Madison wouldn’t be left out.

One girl explained that the Savior had done something for all of us we couldn’t do for ourselves—He died for our sins—and so they were now doing something for someone else she couldn’t do for herself.

Watch the video and listen as the girls themselves tell you about their experience. Warning—it’s a tear jerker!

1. Listen

A lot of times, when we’re talking, we’re busy thinking up what we’re going to say next and we aren’t really listening to what the other person is saying. Listen deeply to what someone else is saying. Ask questions to learn even more. Choose questions that will help you understand what that person is saying, feeling, and thinking. “Were you scared?” “How would you handle that if it were up to you?” You’ll get a reputation for being the world’s best conversationalist and people will know you care about them—making for some great friendships. In the process, you’ll learn more about how others feel about things and this will make you more empathetic.

1. Get to know people who are different from you.

Be careful about this. If you choose friends who drink or use drugs, for instance, you could find yourself in a lot of trouble. Choose good quality friends, but choose them because they aren’t like you sometimes. For instance, if you’ve never had to worry much about whether or not your family will have enough food to get through the week, find someone at school who is in that situation and then spend time really understanding what life is like for that person. Don’t be judgmental—just listen, learn, and if possible, help. If you love to read, find someone who struggles to read. If you’re a great athlete, get to know the kid who is picked last for the team every single time.

1. Read books that show things from a different point of view.

One author wrote two children’s books. They were the same story, but one told it through the eyes of a child who was being bullied and the other book showed the story through the eyes of the bully. Children who read both were able to see both sides of the story and better understood the trials that might lead someone to becoming a bully. It didn’t make bullying right, but the children were able to understand him and to feel sorry for him. A book can give you insights into someone else’s mind, even if it’s fiction.

1. Do volunteer work.

When you are working with people who face a special challenge, you learn a great deal about their lives. If you go into the project with an open mind and loving heart, you’ll begin to develop empathy for them. Helping teach children to read who found it hard gave me empathy for what it’s like to not be able to read. I listened to them talk about their humiliation and their pain and as we worked together, I also learned to celebrate their small steps. Every volunteer project I do teaches me empathy for new things.

1. Imagine.

As a writer, I have to be able to see a story from the point of view of every character in order to make them come to life. Right now I’m struggling to understand a character I don’t really like very much. As I close my eyes and see things the way he does, he becomes a more sympathetic character to me. I like him much more now than I did when he first wandered into my story just because I understand him better. You don’t have to write a story, but try to picture yourself in the situation you don’t have empathy for just yet. How would you feel? What would you be afraid of? How would you want others to treat you? When it’s you, the situation seems different than when it’s someone else.

Okay, to develop real empathy, you’re going to have to get off the computer and out into the world. Have fun!

What did Jesus ask us to do?

When Jesus was living on the Earth, he often worried about the people who were hungry, including those who had come to hear him preach for several days. He had fasted for a very long time at the start of His ministry, so He understood hunger. However, He had never experienced sin, and yet He was as kind to the sinner and as able to know just what they needed as he was to those who were hungry. This is because Jesus, being perfect, had empathy.

Teens who are empathetic look at others differently than those who are not. A teen who isn’t empathetic might look at a friend whose family is poor and think, “Wow, they must have made really bad choices, or maybe they’re just lazy. They probably deserve to be poor, and helping them will just encourage them to stay lazy.” An empathetic teenager might thing, “It must be really scary for Jim right now. I wonder what I could do to help. Maybe I can find a way to get him to take a few things of mine I don’t need without making him feel like it’s charity. And I could ask my dad if he needs anyone else to help out at his work. Jim might want an afterschool job.”

Jesus told us that we were not to make final judgments about people. That is God’s job. We can never really know what happens in a person’s life to cause the challenges they’re facing, and we also don’t know what will happen to us in the future. No one is guaranteed to be safe from trials.

Just because studies show teens are less empathetic today doesn’t mean we have an excuse to be that way ourselves. Jesus taught us to love one another and to serve one another, regardless of what other teens are choosing.

How can you become more empathetic? The experts are saying one solution is to spend more time in the actual presence of people—not online or on the phone, but in person, talking and getting to know them. Another way is to avoid media that desensitizes you to pain and suffering.

When you see someone who has a hard life, ask yourself how you would feel in that situation and how you would want to be treated. Try to picture Jesus Christ watching the person and then imagine what He would do. Once you know what Jesus would do, and what He would want you to do, you’ll know what to do yourself. Remember, you could find yourself in the same situation or one equally painful yourself someday. What would you want others to do for you then?