LDS Church presents Young Womanhood Recognition Awards

Earlier this year, several young ladies belonging to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints earned a special honor called the Young Womanhood Recognition Award, which is received after completing a program called “Personal Progress.”[caption id="attachment_10784" align="alignright" width="214"] Bailey Mitchell[/caption]The program is available to young women, starting at age 12, who choose to participate. There are eight categories that must be completed, and each section is based on qualities and principles that the youth are encouraged to develop and use in day-to-day life.  These vibrant, lovely and cheerful young ladies have memorized the eight different categories, called the Values, and can list them off rapid-fire when asked.The award itself is in the form of a necklace with the young lady’s choice of a gold or silver medallion that shows one of the LDS temples, and is adorned at the base by a small ruby in the center of a flower; the ruby symbolizes the Bible scripture found in Proverbs 31, verse 10: “Who can find a virtuous woman?  For her price is far above rubies.” After getting to know them better through these interviews, I know that all of these ladies are worth every bit of that price, and more.Editor’s note: This is part four of a series of four articles featuring some of the young women who earned the award in 2015.Bailey Mitchell Lovell 5th WardShortly before her 14th birthday, Bailey fulfilled the program requirements to receive her silver award. She appreciated the value of individual worth the most, because “it helped me realize how much we are all worth.” Her Good Works project came about because her dad started making some footstools and asked her to help. Her mom noticed that Bailey was helping with a lot of work and suggested that her daughter find a way to turn it into her 10-hour project.[caption id="attachment_10785" align="alignright" width="200"] Rachelle Smith[/caption]Working many more than the required 10 hours, Bailey built more than a dozen footstools to give to all of her cousins.When asked if the program was really worth that much work, she said, “Yes.  It doesn’t sound fun, and sometimes you want to quit, but finishing is worth it.  You really build your testimony. And it’s worth doing twice…” which makes sense when you learn that she will soon earn her honor bee (a smaller, additional charm award) for doing the entire program a second time.Rachelle Smith Lovell 2nd WardRachelle, a 17-year-old junior in high school, got her Young Women’s medallion sewed up in about three months and said the hard part was “keeping on with personal progress, just getting it done.”When asked about favorites, she said, “I liked integrity best of the values, because I feel like it brought me closer to my heavenly father; and the projects helped me to feel the spirit.”  She chose silver for her award.Carmen Dickson Lovell 4th Ward(Young Women’s Leader)[caption id="attachment_10786" align="alignright" width="285"] Carmen Dickson[/caption]Carmen is a vibrant, lovely and cheerful 28-year old with a full-time job and a husband, not exactly the stereotypical personal progress candidate. Yet even with adult-sized demands on her time, she found a way to accomplish the personal progress program for herself.When she first joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she was called to her ward’s young women’s program as a leader, she says, “knowing absolutely nothing about it.” Then a cousin said, “The best way to figure it out is to do it.”Carmen mentioned that going through this program at the same time as many of the young women “put me on the same playing field as they were; I was this leader who’s supposed to know more and teach,” she said, “and yet I was learning right along with them.”Carmen mentioned that the hardest value for her to accomplish happened to be “the two or three things on motherhood, because of my background; those were harder on me than the other values. And I really enjoyed growing my testimony, and learning the basic principles of the gospel.”[caption id="attachment_10787" align="alignright" width="240"] Sarah Jones[/caption]She was 27 when she finished her personal progress, after three years of working toward the final goal of receiving the award…and hers is a silver medallion because, she says with a laugh, “gold doesn’t look good on redheads.”Sarah Jones Cowley 2nd WardRecent graduate Sarah Jones said that the hardest part of the project was being so busy with everything, and also finishing reading the Book of Mormon.  Her favorite project?  Learning the young women motto in sign language and teaching it to her young women’s group.  “It really made us stop and think about what we’re ‘saying’ and about the real meaning of it,” she said.Sarah is now off at college, and when asked if she had any advice for those who haven’t gotten their Young Womanhood Recognition Award yet, she said this: “If you’re not already set on getting it, I’d say to rethink your decision. This program helps prepare you to be a mother and a wife, and it’s important. It prepared me to go out into the real world, where it’s a little scarier than the Big Horn Basin. It helps get you ready for life.”

BY WENDY ROTH