New Beginnings

Tonight was our Stake New Beginnings and we had Jill Stevens, former Miss Utah, former Army Soldier and Daughter of God come and speak to the young women, parents and leaders tonight. It was wonderful, she showed us pictures of her time spent in Afghanistan and talked to us about her experiences over seas. Before she left there were 3 things she wanted to do while over there, 1 was to be a missionary, 2 was to live her standards and 3 was to bring cheer to those who were around her. She would bake cakes or bread for people on their birthday, she painted rocks to look like pumpkins for Halloween, she had her mom send her some poster board to make a tree of thanks for Thanksgiving.

She talked of how she befriended lots of little Afghan children and called some of them "her girls". One of them was born with an eye disease and she called her, her little Cinderella. She was able to help get this girl eye surgery and be her nurse. They became great friends and on their last meeting she knew that giving up her life and nursing school was all worth it. The people in the village where Halima lived, held up an American flag, and she was proud of what she had accomplished there.

Click Here if you want to see some pictures.

While over seas she wanted to continue running (it is a huge part of her life) and asked where she could run and was told they did have a running track but to watch out because it was in the middle of a mine field. She did run, and realized that our every day lives are like a mine field, it's satin trying to interfere with our lives.

She also continued to live her standards and the people she served with adapted to this and were looking out for her and didn't want to offend her so they set up a rating system FS "for Stevens" and NFS "not for Stevens". She said she didn't push her standards on anyone over there, but knew what she stood for and was grateful that others treated her with respect for living her standards.

She did also talk about her experience of being a part of the Miss America pageant, and that she also continued to live her standards while competing for the title. Many tried to tell here that it would be ok to wear a spaghetti strap dress or a 2 piece swimming suit it was just for 1 night, but she didn't want to, she didn't have a problem with anyone else doing this but she wanted to continue living her standards and not go against what she was taught and what she believed.

We were very impressed with this young lady (who by the way just got married last Friday), she is a great role model for our young daughters. She is a true example of a Daughter of God. She talked about how hard everyday life can be (like a mine field) and that if we remember who we are, we won't step on any of those mine's, but go around them. I'm so thankful that we were able to take Deidra to this meeting, we only wish our other girls could have been there as well. We were able to talk to her for just a minute after the meeting was over, she is very sweet and down to earth, she apologized for taking up so much of our time (we didn't mind a bit), we were just grateful for her time (and her cute husband).