--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Connelly, Mary E. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 15 number: 9 published: 1912-07 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Mary E. Connelly, "“The Place of the Y. L. M. I. A. in the Church”," *Improvement Era* 15, no. 9 (July 1912): 836–839.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1509unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1509unse start_page: 836 end_page: 839 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1912-07) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1509unse publication_year: 1912 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1912, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # “The Place of the Y. L. M. I. A. in the Church” THE PLACE OF THE Y. L. M. I. A. IN THE CHURCH." Every thinking person who studies the history and religion of the Church of Jesus Christ is impressed with its wonderful, its perfect, organization. In the great system of training for complete living which the Church provides for its members, the Y. L. M. I. A. holds a unique and an important place. It is a great training school for the women of the Church with branches in every ward. It takes the girls at that critical period of their lives, when they are unsettled, when they so readily yield to influences, especially to the influence of numbers. It holds them through those years when they change from girlhood to womanhood. It encourages them to dream beautiful dreams and then to so order their lives that the vision splendid mav be realized. It combines the advantages gained by the boys from the Y. M. M. I. A. and from the Priesthood Quorums, hence the courses offered cover a wide range, for its duty — is to look after the physical, mental and spiritual development of the Young Women entrusted to its charge. CONJOINT SESSIONS M. I. A. CONFERENCE. 837 It still stands for the same things that it did when President Brig-ham Young- organized the first association "for the promotion of hahits of order, thrift, industry and charity.'" It is interesting to note the wonderful scope, the hreadth of the work that its prophet founder had in view in organizing the young women of Zion into a society. At the first meeting, he said : "I desire them (the young women) to retrench from their extravagance in dress, in eating, and even in speech. The time has come when the sisters must agree to give up their follies of dress and cultivate a modest apparel, a meek deportment, and to set an example before the people of the world worthy of imitation— I want you to set your own fashion. I want my daughters to learn to work and to do it. Not to spend their time for naught, for our time is all the capital God has given us, if we waste that, we are bankrupt, indeed." Continuing, President Young said, "I have long had it in my mind to organize the Young Ladies of Zion into an association so that they might assist the older members of the Church, their fathers and mothers, in propagating, teaching and practicing the principles I have been so long teaching. There is need for the young daughters of Israel to get a living testimony of the truth. More testimonies are obtained on the feet than on the knees. I wish our girls to obtain knowledge of the Gospel for themselves, for this purpose I desire to establish this organization — retrench in everything that is bad and worthless, and improve in everything that is good and beautiful. Not to make yourselves unhappy, but to live so that you may be truly happy in this life and in the life to come." What higher ideals could any society have than these which the father of the Y. L. M. I. A. gave us for its guiding at the first organization? The place of the Young Ladies' Mutual in the Church, then, is : 1st, To gather the young women together into the organization: 2nd. To teach them the gospel of the Life of Christ, remembering that that gospel includes all truth, embraces everything that is beautiful, praiseworthy, and uplifting. For the young women to get a living testimony of the truth, this is the most important, the first great fundamental purpose of the organization to work to. Everything else that President Young mentioned as things to be sought for will follow naturally when this aim is reached, for when a girl gets a living testimony of the gospel, she will cultivate habits of order, thrift, and charity. She will retrench from any extravagance in dress, in eating, or speech. She will learn to work and do it. She will properly value time. She will assist in propagating, teaching and practicing the principles of the gospel. She will retrench in everything that is bad and worthless and improve in everything that is good and beautiful. It is the place of the Young Ladies' Mutual to stand by the side of the Young Men's organization, for they are united by very close ties. The Young Ladies should aid the Young Men whenever and wherever possible, for they are expected to be mutually helpful to each other. It is the prerogative — ave more, the duty of the Young Ladies Mutual to provide times and places where the best in art. literature, and music may be presented and where social activities may be engaged in under proper supervision. 838 IMPROVEMENT ERA. It is the place of the Young Ladies' Mutual to instil into the hearts of the young women of the Church in a way that no other organization can, the high ideal of motherhood, causing the girls to feel that success in no other line of service is comparable to that of giving to the Church pure and properly trained boys and girls to carry on the great work. Its place is to supplement and fortify the teaching of the home and of the other auxiliary organizations. It means much to the Church to have its young women stand unitedly for the putting into practice of rules and regulations of the Church, to have them make the gospel their standard by which they judge whether things are desirable or undesirable. It means much to the Church to have thousands of its women come together every week where they may be taught their duties, where they may have beautiful ideals placed before them, where they may partake of that blessing which the Savior has promised will follow wherever two or three are gathered together in his name. It means much to the Church to have thousands of its young women bear testimony every month of the Father's loving watch-care, of the testimony of the divinity of his work which burns in their hearts, and to have opportunity to voice their aspirations and holiest desires. Through the years that are past the Y. L. M. I. A. has marched steadily forward. In the beginning progress was necessarily slow. In this day when schools and different organizations train women for leadership, public speaking, etc., it is hard to appreciate the difficulties of pioneer work when much opposition had to be overcome and when women received their first training for public work in these organizations. Emphasis has been laid on many of the things Brigham Young spoke about at the initial organization. But some things are almost untouched as yet. However, the most important things have never been lost sight of. We glory in its splendid achievements, but it is only the dawning of the day. Were a vision of this great work in its noonday splendor vouchsafed to us, it would dazzle our eyes and would perhaps make us feel wholly incapable of carrying on so great a work. The Concord Sage has said: "God screens us evermore from premature ideas, our eyes are holden that we cannot see things that stare us in the face until the mind is ripened, then we behold them and the time when we saw them not is like a dream." In the future as in the past it will ever be the chief work of the associations to keep, through the spirit of the meetings, through the things taught, through the prayers, testimonies and music, the girls' minds fixed on the eternal verities of the Gospel, to keep before them ideals of pure, true, purposeful womanhood. Emerson truly said : "If your eye is on the eternal, your intellect will grow and your opinions and actions will have a beauty which no learning or combined advantages of other men can rival. The moment of your loss of faith and acceptance of the lucrative standard will be marked in the pause or solstice of genius the sequent retrogression and inevitable loss of attraction to other minds." Through the teaching and influence of the Mutual will the Young Women of Zion arise and shine because of their gentleness, faith, peace, joy, and love. CONJOINT SESSIONS M. I. A. CONFERENCE. 839 Organ solo, Professor J. J. McClellan. _ Elder Heber J. Grant followed by a strong address, a short synopsis of which follows on "