Repeating Personal Progress

The Personal Progress is the program created by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for young women ages 12-17. In the current booklet it lists what the purpose of the program is:

"Personal Progress will help you strengthen your faith in and testimony of Jesus Christ as you learn His teachings and regularly apply them in your life. It will help you strengthen both your present family and your future family. It will help you prepare to make and keep sacred covenants and receive the ordinances of the temple. And it will prepare you to be a faithful, contributing member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

"The Personal Progress program uses the eight Young Women values to help you understand more fully who you are, why you are here on the earth, and what you should be doing as a daughter of God to prepare for the day you go to the temple to make sacred covenants. It will help you prepare for your future roles as a faithful woman, wife, mother, and leader in God’s kingdom. Participating in Personal Progress teaches you to make commitments, carry them out, and report your progress to a parent or leader. The patterns you establish as you work on Personal Progress—such as prayer, scripture study, service, and journal keeping—will become personal daily habits. These habits will strengthen your testimony and help you learn and improve throughout your life" (Overview for Young Women).

I received my Young Womanhood Recognition on September 7, 2008. The Young Women Personal Progress booklet I was given just before I turned 12 years old is in a state of possessing a faded blue binding, as well as highlighter and pen marking each page accompanied by messy handwriting, dates and signatures. That little booklet helped teach me a lot of things in life.

The Young Women theme that is recited each Sunday is as follows:

We are daughters of our Heavenly Father, who loves us, and we love Him. 

We will "stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, 

and in all places" (Mosiah 18:9) as we strive to live 

the Young Women values, which are:

Faith

Divine Nature

Individual Worth

Knowledge

Choice and Accountability

Good Works

Integrity and

Virtue.

We believe as we come to accept and act upon these values, 

we will be prepared to strengthen home and family, make and keep sacred covenants, 

receive the ordinances of the temple, and enjoy the blessings of exaltation.

They first added "strengthen home and family" just before I joined Young Women's. Then the new value "Virtue" was added by December 2008. If I had a few more months before I graduated, I would have attempted earning my Young Women's Recognition once again. Since then, I've had that an idea bouncing around in my head for awhile. Yesterday, I determined to actually act on this idea. It's my early New Year's Resolution. In the young women's you have approximately 7 years to complete Personal Progress. As a result, as my own deadline is by the end of the year 2018.

You may be asking me why I want to go complete this program once again. But if you go back to what the purpose of the program is:

• strengthen your faith in and your testimony of Jesus Christ.
• strengthen both your present family and your future family.
• prepare you to make and keep sacred covenants and receive the ordinances of the temple.
• prepare you to be a faithful, contributing member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
• understand more fully who you are, why you are here on the earth, and what you should be doing as a daughter of God to prepare for the day you go to the temple to make sacred covenants.
• prepare for your future roles as a faithful woman, wife, mother, and leader in God’s kingdom.
• teaches you to make commitments, carry them out, and report your progress to a parent or leader.
• patterns you establish will become personal daily habits. These habits will strengthen your testimony and help you learn and improve throughout your life.

Is there any reason why I wouldn't want to accomplish this once again? It's called Personal Progress. I want to keep progressing. It'll help me focus on the things that would be most beneficial. Things to do that could always be areas one could be progressing in.