Izzy gave this talk in her Sacrament meeting a few weeks ago. She shared it with us, and we wanted to share it with everyone. Izzy is a thoughtful, young 13 year old girl that has come to find that the Lord answers questions, even hard ones, and that she can access those answers all for herself.

by Izzy
This month’s theme in Young Womens is the priesthood. This topic has been very complicated for me. You see, in the past few months, I have had a lot of questions about the priesthood. For several of these questions, it seems like no one really knows the answers. And maybe we really won’t ever know the answer to it. Some of my questions HAVE gotten an answer, though, and I’m so glad. My first question was why did Heavenly Father choose men to have the priesthood and not women? Men have sort of a bad history of thinking they are better than women already! And sometimes, the boys in my class are really mean to me about how they have the priesthood and I don’t. That really hurts. I’m not saying that women should have the priesthood, because I know that Heavenly Father does what he does for a reason. But I just don’t know what that reason is. And so, I had the question. And it’s kind of a big one, I think! For months, I prayed and prayed, asking Heavenly Father why it was that way. I just wanted to know. I really hate not knowing things, and I always want answers to my many, many questions. Anyway, I just kept asking. I got mad at Heavenly Father several times, and I regret that. One day my mom and I were talking about it, and she told me that maybe I was asking the wrong questions. She said I might not get an answer to that question, but I could get answers to other questions, like “do you love me?” or “what do you want me to do about these feelings and questions?” So instead of me telling God what I wanted Him to do for me, I decided to ask what I could do to be in line with Him.

So, I continued to pray, however this time, I asked what God wants me to do. I didn’t get an answer right away, but I did eventually get an answer! He didn’t talk to me or give me a huge revelation, but it was an answer, and I KNOW that it was. He showed me all of my talents; He showed me a picture of all the amazing women around me and in my life. I realized that He never meant to hurt women. I felt how much He loved me. It was an amazing and wonderful feeling. He showed me all the women in my life that I see every day doing service and taking care of everyone without a thought. They do so much and are never even asked! Men do these things, too. So, the truth is, our church is just about service. And that is the Priesthood. The Priesthood is service. So, I don’t know why I don’t “hold” the Priesthood, and I still want to know the answer to that question, but I do know that priesthood is service. Women serve, men serve. We are all serving. And my answer was that Heavenly Father loves me and is proud of me for participating in the priesthood by serving. There is nothing that says that priesthood is better than women. All men and women are equal. That was Heavenly Father’s plan all along. I don’t know the answer to my first question, but I know that I can be ok without knowing the answer for now because I know Heavenly Father loves me. I’m sorry it took me so long to see that.

My second question is about this: I have heard of some people who think that their gender is superior to the other. I have seen it on both sides. It used to be mostly men that thought this, but I know some women that think this as well. It is wrong. My question was why people feel this way. I once again went to Heavenly Father. This time, the answer came quickly. Heavenly father put a very distinct thought into my head that I had never ever thought before. There are a lot of people that are lost and have forgotten that God loves them so much. So they try to make themselves feel better by being unkind to others, especially others they feel are easily ‘different’ than they are. But we need each other because men and women are awesome!

The Priesthood helps all of us to not be lost because we can have the gift of the Holy Ghost. And the Holy Ghost comes because of the Priesthood. The whole world needs that gift! So, we all have a job to help the whole world feel the Holy Ghost, and that is a Priesthood job, and that is something we can all be a part of. And then, hopefully people won’t feel like they need to put others down to make themselves feel better. Then maybe people will see that men and women are both amazing, they’re both full of wonderful talents, and Heavenly Father loves us both so, so much.