Two Sundays ago we had Sgt. Jill Stevens come speak at our stake youth Standards Night. She was wonderful. She was funny and spiritual and tough and it really was great. She brought a slide show with pictures from her tour in Afghanistan and had humorous stories about how she managed to cope while there and still make a difference by keeping her standards.
One of my favorite parts was that she set as a goal before she went to bring Joy while she was there. She set about baking cakes and cookies for all her troopmates, she organized races, parties, and painted rocks like jack-o-lanterns. She told of how her family has a Thanksgiving tradition of posting up a large tree trunk and then throughout the month, they write things they are thankful for on leaves. She would carry blank leaves in her pockets when she'd go on missions and give them to the other soldiers so they could write things they were thankful for and then she'd go back and put them on the tree. It was such a neat thing for all the soldiers that they left it up for months after November was over. She said that early in her tour she was feeling a little depressed and unhappy and she was looking at her dog tags just wasting time. She noticed her name "Jill Stevens" and her rank "Sergeant", her religion "LDS" and then she saw that her tags said "be positive!" Well, they really said blood type "B+" but she took this to be a sign that this was in her blood!
One of the other great things she mentioned was the development of the NFS rating system. She said that she kept to her standards when it came to movies and language but never tried to push them on the others. Eventually they started referring to certain conversations as "Not For Stevens - NFS" and when she was around they'd stop people who were going to bring an NFS moment. She didn't try to force her beliefs on them but the respected her for her example and were more careful.
It was a really great talk for the youth and for us leaders. I left wanting to be happier and better! What a cool girl!!
1 comment:
Was this an activity for the youth? It sounds like it would have been great for them. I'm glad you got to listen as well. One of the perks of being in YW, right?
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