Be {you} tiful - 358

I saw this really awesome activity on pinterest and used it for Young Womens this week. It was a HUGE hit.  It is called Be {you} tiful and focuses on loving yourself for who you are and respecting the Temple Heavenly Father gave you.

 I found a lot of my material on this post. I didn't use all of it, but here is the link if you want it all.


Dictionary.com defines Beauty as:

“the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from [1] sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), [2] a meaningful design or pattern, or [3] something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).”

I then wrote on the chalk board a model like this:

 (Not my diagram, I just used the main points in mine. I did not include repentance)

 
Clothes:
I had a popular magazine that I tore some good and bad examples of clothing and modesty and asked the girls the sort them. I posted them around the chalk board with the diagram. 
 
A Catholic blogger recently wrote an article called “The Death of Pretty,” in which he lamented the prevailing trend to abandon “pretty” in favor of “hot.”

“Once upon a time, women wanted to project an innocence.  I am not idealizing another age and I have no illusions about the virtues of our grandparents, concupiscence being what it is.  But some things were different in the back then.  First and foremost, many beautiful women, whatever the state of their souls, still wished to project a public innocence and virtue.  And that combination of beauty and innocence is what I define as pretty.
By nature, generally when men see this combination in women it brings out their better qualities, their best in fact.  That special combination of beauty and innocence, the pretty inspires men to protect and defend it.
Young women today do not seem to aspire to pretty, they prefer to be regarded as hot. Hotness is something altogether different.  When women want to be hot instead of pretty, they must view themselves in a certain way and consequently men view them differently as well.
As I said, pretty inspires men’s nobler instincts to protect and defend.  Pretty is cherished. Hotness, on the other hand, is a commodity.  Its value is temporary and must be used.  It is a consumable.”

Body:
The prophet Joseph Smith taught: “We came to this earth that we might have a body and present it pure before God in the Celestial Kingdom. The great principle of happiness consists in having a body. The Devil has no body, and herein is his punishment.”
Sister Susan W. Tanner added (and I highlighted the part I really love):

“Satan learned these same eternal truths about the body, and yet his punishment is that he does not have one. Therefore he tries to do everything he can to get us to abuse or misuse this precious gift. He has filled the world with lies and deceptions about the body. He tempts many to defile this great gift of the body through unchastity, immodesty, self-indulgence, and addictions. He seduces some to despise their bodies; others he tempts to worship their bodies. In either case, he entices the world to regard the body merely as an object.“

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland spoke directly to young women (and women) in general conference, and said the following about current body-image trends:

Frankly, the world has been brutal with you in this regard. You are bombarded in movies, television, fashion magazines, and advertisements with the message that looks are everything! The pitch is, “If your looks are good enough, your life will be glamorous and you will be happy and popular.” That kind of pressure is immense in the teenage years, to say nothing of later womanhood. In too many cases too much is being done to the human body to meet just such a fictional (to say nothing of superficial) standard. . . . . In terms of preoccupation with self and a fixation on the physical, this is more than social insanity; it is spiritually destructive, and it accounts for much of the unhappiness women, including young women, face in the modern world. And if adults are preoccupied with appearance—tucking and nipping and implanting and remodeling everything that can be remodeled—those pressures and anxieties will certainly seep through to children. At some point the problem becomes what the Book of Mormon called “vain imaginations.”

Makeup:
Elder Richard G. Scott warned:

“Satan has unleashed a seductive campaign to undermine the sanctity of womanhood, to deceive the daughters of God and divert them from their divine destiny. He well knows women are the compassionate, self-sacrificing, loving power that binds together the human family. He would focus their interests solely on their physical attributes and rob them of their exalting roles as wives and mothers.”

Armor of God:
The world’s version of beauty tells us to put on sexy clothes.  Deep beauty tells us to put on the armor of God. When the First Presidency wrote the standards as outlined in For the Strength of Youth, they asserted:

“The standards in this booklet will help you with the important choices you are making now and will yet make in the future. We promise that as you keep the covenants you have made and these standards, you will be blessed with the companionship of the Holy Ghost, your faith and testimony will grow stronger, and you will enjoy increasing happiness.”

The guidelines state:

Prophets of God have continually counseled His children to dress modestly. When you are well groomed and modestly dressed, you invite the companionship of the Spirit and you can be a good influence on others. Your dress and grooming influence the way you and others act.
Never lower your standards of dress. Do not use a special occasion as an excuse to be immodest. When you dress immodestly, you send a message that is contrary to your identity as a son or daughter of God. You also send the message that you are using your body to get attention and approval.
Immodest clothing is any clothing that is tight, sheer, or revealing in any other manner. Young women should avoid short shorts and short skirts, shirts that do not cover the stomach, and clothing that does not cover the shoulders or is low-cut in the front or the back. Young men should also maintain modesty in their appearance. Young men and young women should be neat and clean and avoid being extreme or inappropriately casual in clothing, hairstyle, and behavior. They should choose appropriately modest apparel when participating in sports. The fashions of the world will change, but the Lord’s standards will not change.

Sister Silvia Allred, of the general Relief Society presidency, taught:

“One of the challenges members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints face today is obeying principles of modesty in an increasingly immodest world. Difficult though it may be, we can show our discipleship to the Savior Jesus Christ by obeying the Church’s standards of modesty. … For Latter-day Saints, the way we dress demonstrates our understanding of and commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ”

Body + Spirit = Temple:
The world would teach us that the body is an object.  Deep beauty relies upon the doctrine that the body is a sacred vessel for the Spirit.  The scriptures teach that when we are righteous, the body is full of light.  This is what Sister Tanner taught about appropriate goals for our bodies:

“Happiness comes from accepting the bodies we have been given as divine gifts and enhancing our natural attributes, not from remaking our bodies after the image of the world. The Lord wants us to be made over—but in His image, not in the image of the world, by receiving His image in our countenances.  . . .
Our bodies are our temples. We are not less but more like Heavenly Father because we are embodied. I testify that we are His children, made in His image, with the potential to become like Him. Let us treat this divine gift of the body with great care.”

Elder Holland echoed her plea:

“In this same vein may I address an even more sensitive subject. I plead with you young women to please be more accepting of yourselves, including your body shape and style, with a little less longing to look like someone else. We are all different. Some are tall, and some are short. Some are round, and some are thin. And almost everyone at some time or other wants to be something they are not! But as one adviser to teenage girls said: “You can’t live your life worrying that the world is staring at you. When you let people’s opinions make you self-conscious you give away your power. … The key to feeling [confident] is to always listen to your inner self—[the real you.]”And in the kingdom of God, the real you is “more precious than rubies.”Every young woman is a child of destiny and every adult woman a powerful force for good. I mention adult women because, sisters, you are our greatest examples and resource for these young women.”

Then I handed out cards to the girls and they were to think of someone they admired. They were to think of the qualities that makes them admirable and then write them a thank you you note for being a good example. 

Then This part was really fun. Each girl took a turn standing in front of the chalk board and the other girls wrote good qualities all round them. I took pictures and will hand them out on Sunday so they can always remember what other admire in them. It turned out super cute!

Ok, now for the craft, I bought little hand mirrors and used my cricut and left over vinyl and cut the phrase Be{you}tiful out. So I handed out mirrors and the strips of vinyl and they put the phrase on the Mirror. Now everytime they use the mirror they will see the phrase and remember the lesson and hopefully make good choices concerning how they treat and dress their bodies! 

Oh and then we had treats!