The Wonderful Thing That Is You and the Wonderful Good You Can Do (1988)

The Wonderful Thing That Is You AND T H E

Wonderful Good You Can Do An Address by President Gordon B. Hinckley, , First Counselor in the First Presidency

"Te Wonderful iin<i That Is You "AND T H E

W.)ndertijl You C a n Do A n Address by President Gordon B. Hinckley, First Counselor in the First Presidency

Published by T h e C h u r c h of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Salt Lake C i t y , U t a h

Cover: President Gordon B. Hinckley with his granddaughters who are in the Young W o m e n organization Copyright Š 1988 by Corporation of the President of T h e C h u r c h of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints A l l Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America

The Wonderful Thing That Is You "AND T H E

Wonderful Good Yon Can Do y dear sisters, never before has there been such a gathering of young women of the Church. What a magnificent sight you are! You are an inspiration, in every sense, and a bright and glowing hope for the future of this work in all the earth.

W e have just passed through a great event in the history of the Church. Spencer W .

Kimball, the twelfth President, passed away last Tuesday evening. His death and burial have brought us all a little closer to our Father in Heaven and to one another as his sons and daughters. W e have seen in a remarkable and wonderful way the consequences of one life well lived in service to others. W e have come to realize, with a renewed and sharpened sense, the majesty and wonder of this great work of God of which we are all a part. W e have come to know that when one prophet dies, another is preparedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;under the plan of the Almightyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;to take his place, and thus it will be for as long as the earth shall remain.

1 appreciate the opportunity of speaking to you in the afterglow of that great event.

W i t h all my heart 1 plead with the Lord to give me power to say something that will be helpful to you young women of this great generation, the best generation, 1 believe, in the history of the world.

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Your Father in Heaven smiles upon you. Of that 1 am confident. He loves you, as do we.

I speak for all of your Brethren of the General Authorities and of the Latter-day Saints throughout the world. W e honor you.

We bless you. W e pray for you. You are so very important. You will be the mothers of our posterity. You will be their teachers and their exemplars. You give assurance of new generations yet to comeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;generations of strength, and goodness, and faith. So very much depends on you. You can be so tremendous an influence for future peace in the world, for decency in the world, for joy and goodness in the world.

1 hope and pray that when you return to your homes tonight there will be in each of your hearts a resolution to live nearer to the limitless self that lies within you. 1 am not asking for perfection; 1 am asking for greater effort.

You A r e God's Supreme Creation 1 have titled this talk " T h e Wonderful T h i n g That Is You and the Wonderful Good You Can D o . " Have you ever contemplated the wonders of yourself, the eyes with which you see, the ears with which you hear, the voice with which you speak? No camera ever built can compare with the human eye. No method of communication ever devised can compare with the voice and the ear. No pump ever built will run as long or as efficiently as the human heart. No computer or other creature of science can equal the human brain. What a remarkable thing you are! You can think by day and dream hy night. You can speak and hear and smell.

Look at your finger. T h e most skillful attempt to reproduce it mechanically has resulted in only a crude approximation. T h e next time you use your finger, watch it, look at it carefully, and sense the wonder of it.

You have within you the qualities of all the generations that have preceded you. You are, as it were, a vessel through whom will be passed those qualities to the generations that will follow.

You are God's supreme creation. Only after the earth had been formed, after the day had been separated from the night, after the waters had been divided from the land, after vegetation and animal life had been created, and after man had been placed on the earth, was woman created; and only then was the work pronounced complete and good.

You are a daughter of God, each of you, endowed with something of his divinity. It is a part of your eternal nature. You cannot afford to live beneath that portion of divinity.

You cannot afford to hide it or to set it aside.

You must never disregard it. T h i s is the wonderful thing that is you. Now, let me say a word on the wonderful good you can do.

You Can Do Wonderful Good President Kimball's life should be a reminder to each of us of the potential we have to make something meaningful and significant of our lives. Of course, not everyone can he president, or governor, or a chief executive officer; but everyone can do something with at least a measure of excellence.

You are young and have before you marvelous opportunities for education. Never before in the history of the world has there been a time when so many opportunities have been open to women. Now is the season to train your minds and your hands for the work you wish to do. I am not suggesting that all of you should be university students. There is a need for technicians of many varieties, and the work to he done is honorable and contributes immensely to the society of which we are a part.

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Some of you may think that marriage will take care of all of your future needs.

Marriage is important, and 1 hope that each of you will have the blessing of a happy marriage, but circumstances arise in the lives of many women that make it necessary for them to work and provide for their needs.

Education can prove to he the wisest and most profitable investment you can make.

Get all the help and direction you can concerning your aptitudes and ambitions, and then get training to sharpen your skills and improve your opportunities.

Reach out to others. Selfishness can hecomc a consuming disease that destroys character and makes one unattractive. Allocate some of your time to the service of those who can be blessed hy your efforts.

The Example of Florence Nightingale 1 read again the other day about the life of Florence Nightingale. Perhaps you have never heard of her. She was born in 1820 and died in 1910. She never had the privilege of marriage. But she accomplished a work of which we are all the beneficiaries.

Her father was well-to-do, and she really had no need to work. She was well educated as a woman of the British aristocracy. She might have spent her life in dancing, traveling, and enjoying other pursuits that her station would permit, but she became interested in the sick and in the hospital nursing care then available. She visited hospitals in a number of countries and became impressed with the need for formal discipline in nursing. She took training as a nurse and became qualified to serve as superintendent of a London hospital.

In 1854 England was at war in the Crimea.

The suffering of those wounded in battle was terrible. Florence Nightingale organized a 4

staff of thirty-eight nurses. Defying government bureaucracy and even military authority, they went to the battle areas, rolled up their sleeves, and went to work to improve the terrible conditions they found.

Florence Nightingale worked for twenty hours at a stretch to help the wounded. A t night, carrying a lamp, she would walk among the wards, stopping to speak and to give encouragement to those in pain.

She soon had ten thousand wounded men under her charge, and she was made general superintendent of all army hospitals in the area. She knew how to be firm. She knew when to he angry. She worked as a woman with a consuming mission. I n February 1855 the death rate in the hospitals was a terrifying 42 percent. Nearly one of every two wounded died. By June of that year, only four months later, it was down to 2 percent. It was a miracle, performed hy a woman.

She herself nearly died of illness and fatigue.

Her name became celebrated all over Britain.

A ship was sent to bring her home to a great, triumphant reception in London.

She shunned this notoriety. She quietly took a ship to France and crossed incognito to England, arriving home before the news of her return became public. She went to Queen Victoria with a plea for hospital reform, and she won the hacking of the queen.

Florence Nightingale never entirely recovered from the stress of those experiences, hut she set in motion forces for nursing reform the effects of which are still felt. She was an angel of mercy, a delicate English girl of refined and educated ways who lost herself in service to others; and millions have been spared untold pain as a result.

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Again, I am not suggesting that you become a Florence Nightingale, hut 1 am saying that no one can foretell the vast good you can do if you set your heart to do it.

In a revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Lord said (and 1 paraphrase it to fit you): "Verily 1 say, [young women] should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them" ( D & C 58:27-28; emphasis added).

Let this he a day of new beginnings, a commencement day. Let this he a day when each of us resolves to do a little better, to try a little harder, to extend ourselves to assist others.

Cultivate Great Companionships Most of you are here with friends. There is no better thing you can do than to establish good companionships. It is my observation that people seldom get into trouble alone.

Peer pressure is a very real thing. Peer encouragement can also be a very real thing.

As we talk together tonight, 1 suggest that you cultivate great companionships. 1 mention several of these.

1. Cultivate the companionship of good friends in whose lives you can find qualities worth brining into your own lives. Years ago 1 would interview many missionaries in the pursuit of my Church assignments. 1 would ask a missionary, " W h a t quality do you see in your companion that you would like to have in your own life?" There was usually a surprised look and a long pause. T h e individual had never thought of that question. He or she may have seen the faults in the companion but had failed to look for the virtues.

Choose carefully your companions, and then look for the virtues in their lives and emulate 6

them in your own. I n the process of doing so, shed from your own behavior those elements that you know are downgrading.

2. Cultivate the companionship of good books. 1 am surprised at how little many people, and particularly many young people, read. There is no other experience quite like sharing the mind of a great thinker. It is a wonderful thing to relive history as it is created by brilliant and honest writers.

Determine now to read the scriptures. Yes, read them as the word of God. Read them with pencil in hand, marking them and drinking of their eternal truths. A n d then read other good hooks from the worlds of literature, history, exploration, and science—books that tell of the people and places of the earth. Your minds will grow and stretch, and you will feel a mental invigoration that will be wonderful to experience.

3. Cultivate the companionship of good music. 1 was shocked to read in a recent magazine that "studies show that teenagers listen to an estimated 10,500 hours of rock music between the 7th and 12th grades alone—just 500 hours less than the total time they spend in school over 12 years."

The article continues: "Televised violence is so pervasive that the average high school student by graduation day has seen 18,000 murders in 22,000 hours of television viewing—that's twice as many hours as are spent in the classroom" ( U . S . News & World Report, 28 Oct. 1985, p. 46).

Do you want to eat sawdust when you might have steak? W h y waste time on such chaff?

Again, 1 am not suggesting that you must listen exclusively to classical music or that you watch only "highbrow" television. Far from it. What 1 am suggesting is that you 7

listen to and watch that which is uplifting, that which is refining, that which avoids pornographic suggestion, evil innuendo, and false values. You do not have the time to spend hours and hours listening to and watching that which only degrades and appeals to the animal nature.

4. Cultivate the companionship of your parents.

Although you may douht it at times, they love you. They pray for you. They are concerned with your welfare. Most of them are wise with the wisdom that has come of long experience. T h e hest friend any girl can have is a good mother. Cultivate that wonderful relationship.

5. Cultivate a companionship with your Father in Heaven. He is your Creator, who loves you. He gave his Son, and his Son gave his life as a sacrifice for you, to open the way that you might gain eternal life.

Speak to him in prayer. Start each day with a conversation with your Heavenly Father, and close each day with an expression of gratitude for the blessings which are yours.

You Are a Daughter of God You will not need to be reminded to be virtuous, you will not need to be reminded to he clean, if you will remember always that you are a daughter of God, that a portion of his divinity is within you, and that you must make an accounting to him.

In the Church we frequently use the expression "the Aaronic Priesthood and girls of similar age." 1 do not like that. 1 think it is somewhat demeaning to you. 1 like, rather, the expression "the Aaronic Priesthood and young women."

In that great revelation that we know as section 76 of the Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon declare: 8

" A n d now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!

"For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice hearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the F a t h e r â&#x20AC;&#x201D; "That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto G o d " ( D & C 7 6 : 2 2 - 2 4 ) .

Note that daughters are given the same emphasis as sons. 1 believe that our Heavenly Father loves his daughters as much as he loves his sons. I n fact, if the love of earthly fathers for their children is any indication, he may feel a little extra sense of love in behalf of his delightful daughters.

In that same revelation is found this great promise, which may apply to you: "For thus saith the L o r d â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 1 , the Lord, . . . delight to honor those who serve me in righteousness and in truth. . . .

"Great shall he their reward and eternal shall be their glory. . . . " A n d their wisdom shall be great, and their understanding reach to heaven; and before them the wisdom of the wise shall perish, and the understanding of the prudent shall come to naught.

"For by my Spirit will I enlighten them, and by my power will 1 make known unto them the secrets of my w i l l â&#x20AC;&#x201D; y e a , even those things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor yet entered into the heart of man [or woman]" ( D & C 7 6 : 5 - 6 , 9 - 1 0 ) .

My dear friends, could one receive a greater promise than that? Never stoop to the evil, the dishonest, the self-cheating practices of the world that involve sexual impurity, the 9

use of drugs, or unseemly and crude behavior. Rather, as daughters of the everlasting Father, as children with a great birthright, and as members of T h e Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, resolve to stand in all circumstances, at all times, and in all conditions as those who are true to the faith. May C o d hless you to this end that you may have joy in your lives and also that happiness which is everlasting, 1 humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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