Let Your Light Shine

Sometimes I worry if I let my light shine, I will come across as a prude or goody-goody, or at very least, didactic. I have come to realize over and over again, in situations where you have a relationship of trust, letting your light shine is essential.

I come in contact with youth everyday as a teacher, but we all come in contact with people in our sphere of influence all the time. Little examples we can set, or words of encouragement to do what's right, are never wasted.

I started a book last week, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and it's sexually explicit. I stopped reading it and tossed it across my bedroom. A student of mine had asked me to tell her how it was, and she would tell me about the book Sold, she checked out from the library the same time I was checking out mine, and we would let each other know if they were appropriate books for nice girls like us. Haha. I got an e-mail late Friday night saying, Miss -----, my book was good and clean, how about yours? I e-mailed her back Saturday morning, don't read it, sexual content. She sent back and immediate, Thanks!

A male student of mine had me read a chapter of a novel he is aspiring to publish. He told me to skip the naughty scene he wrote on page 5. I told him he was better than that--he didn't need to write that in at all! He said sex sells--and I said you are better that, and you know it. You do not need to fall to least-common-denominator-appeal. I ran into him a few days later in the grocery store. He said hey, he re-wrote it and took the naughty parts out, and I would be proud of him because he wrote the next chapter and it wasn't naughty either. I told him I was very proud of him.

I noticed a very popular girl at the end of last year, cute, blonde cheerleader in a very modest dress at prom. I complimented her on her modesty and the next week at school took the time to talk to her mom about how proud I was that with all the immodest options available she had chosen to keep herself covered. Her mom talked of the fight she had had to make sure her daughter wore a modest dress. She teared up and thanked me for noticing and for pointing it out to her daughter who needed some encouragement to make good choices right now.

I'm not trying to toot my own horn, just to share what I am learning, which is people care when you notice they are doing what is right, and it shows them you love when you let them know you care enough about them to want them to make good choices.

I've been inspired by President Monson's talk "See Others as They May Become," from the October 2012 general conference:  See Others as They May Become

I pray that we will have the courage to extend the hand of fellowship, the tenacity to try and try again, and the humility needed to seek guidance from our Father as we fulfill our mandate to share the gospel. The responsibility is upon us, brethren."