The Lord's Youth Battalion

I sure hope you watched President and Sister Nelson's broadcast this evening. If you didn't, stop what you're doing and listen to it right now at www.lds.org.

The headline is that President Nelson is asking youth of the church to join "The Lord's Youth Battalion"!

As a Mother, who is trying so hard to steer my three oldest preteens in the right direction I absolutely loved President Nelson's vision for the youth and his advice (because, among other things, they echo what we've been teaching our children for a while now in our home. Yes, I was not-so-secretly doing Mom-was-right cartwheels tonight over what he taught!!  There's nothing like getting back-up from the Prophet himself. I hope there were many, many parents cheering as I was this evening!)

President Nelson so concisely and simply nailed each point, that, if followed, will aid our children as they enlist and serve in the Lord's Youth Battalion...which is God's army to gather His elect in these very latter days.

His marching orders were as follows:

a. Read the Book of Mormon daily (as he has taught previously)

1. Take a 7-day fast from social media to lessen it's influence on you. (I've previously asked my children to stay off social media all-together until they're adults.) He said, much of posts on social media are fake, so "take a break from fake."

2. Take this 7-day fast time to serve others and make a self-assessment. (Make a weekly sacrifice of time to the Lord.)

3.  Keep on the covenant Path.  Repent and get back on the path if needed.

4. Pray daily that all of God's children may receive the blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

5. Stand out. Be different. Be a Light.  If people call you weird, wear that distinction as a badge of honor. (I tell my kids all the time: "I expect you to be different. If you look too much like everyone else you might not be doing it right!") 
Study the For the Strength of Youth manual anew (This is our current course of study for FHE as I've mentioned on here a few times in my FHE posts!)  Mark it up, talk about it with friends.  Discuss ways you can live the standards more exactly. *Share a copy of For the Strength of Youth with a friend.* (How massively cool is that?  What a huge impact doing this will have!  We've been suggesting to our own children to share their standards with their friends NOW before their friends start to make wrong choices...and this takes it a whole step further. I love it. So Bold.)

President Nelson closed by saying: "You have the capacity to be smarter, wiser, and to have more impact on the world than any previous generation."

I love it, I love it.  Amen and AMEN!

Then he asked all to stand and sing the closing hymn "Hope of Israel."

I had my girls who were listening and watching with me stand and we MARCHED to the hymn and raised our imaginary swords to the sky.

I hope it was dramatic enough!  I know that I'm energized!! How about you?