Speaking Words of Wisdom

Sometimes I look at people younger than me and think "was I really like that when I was that age?" or "how did I not feel young then?"

As a leader over the young women at my church congregation, I have many opportunities to observe the youth. How they act, what they wear, what they like, what they think about different topics, how they work together, what they do when they don't like an activity, how they react to different teaching styles... You get the idea.

Last night was one of those times when the youth surprised me. Most of the time, that is a good thing.

There were two parts to our activity: performing service by cleaning the nursery toys and then a relay obstacle course. We had about 15 extra minutes so we had they youth sit down and we talked for a bit. I led this part of the evening so I started by asking if they'd heard of the Word of Wisdom. Only a few raised their hands. Maybe the others didn't know, maybe they weren't listening, maybe they were lazy. I asked one of the 12 year olds to explain it. I love what she first said. The Word of Wisdom contains guidelines by which we live our lives.

Predominantly it talks about eating and exercise but I loved what that young woman said so I took it further. I asked them what activity we did first and how doing service was good for our lives. One girl answered that it taught us charity. In other words, we can learn to truly love others by serving them.

When I asked about the rest of the evening, I got so many answers! And they were all good. "We exercised." "We faced trials and overcame them." "We worked as a team." "Some teams finished first but everyone still finished."

I love the wisdom of our youth! I wish they demonstrated it more but these moments stand out more and I appreciate those moments.

And now for a completely random fact: I just wrote this on an app.