150 years ago, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints formally created a special organization just for girls aged 12-18. This year, girls in Katy have joined over one million young women from all over the world in a special ‘My 150’ challenge to celebrate its birthday. They have carried out hundreds of good deeds, shared positive messages on social media and achieved some pretty lofty goals in commemoration.
The aim of the organization has always been to enable girls to flourish and grow in meaningful ways by setting and achieving goals, and that’s just what they have been doing. The challenge was to choose something meaningful they could do relating to the number 150. In Cross Creek Ranch, young women collected 150 food pantry items for Katy Christian Ministries. They wrote 150 letters to Star of Hope, a homeless shelter, expressing their love and hope to those in need. The younger girls decorated lunch bags for the Lunches of Love charity.
13-year old Anneliese in Falcon Ranch set a goal to run 150 miles along with her mother Lori. They split up the challenge into running 12 miles per week. “It was pretty tough during the summer but we pushed through!” says Lori. Anneliese also set a goal to read 150 minutes of scripture every week.
Each of the girls was encouraged to set her own goals around what she wanted to achieve. As a youth leader, Lori was surprised by how challenging the goals set by the girls were. “You see them doing these amazing things by their own choice, things that as an adult are hard to achieve. You would think they would take the easy option but that wasn’t the case at all. It has been inspiring.”
Other young women in Katy made 150 treats and delivered them to neighbors and to the homeless. Another made 150 fired ceramic ornaments to give as Christmas gifts. 16-year old Ashlyn from Silver Ranch posted uplifting messages to Instagram for 150 consecutive days. As well as providing a ray of sunshine to others, “It helped me stay positive on days that I felt sad,” says Ashlyn.
The world may have been a very different place 150 years ago, but some things were just the same as they are now – parents wanting their children to make good choices, young people wanting to get together to have fun, and the fashions of the day sometimes being a source of contention between parent and child. Perhaps this is what then Church President Brigham Young had in mind when he counseled that first group of girls 150 years ago: “Retrench in everything that is bad and worthless, and improve in everything that is good and beautiful. … Not to make yourselves unhappy, but to live so that you may be truly happy in this life and in the life to come.”
While long ago the Young Women organization challenged the girls to achieve goals such as clearing sagebrush off of one-half acre of land or learning how to manage a team of horses, these days the girls develop best when they set and manage their own goals with help from parents and leaders. Though the Young Women organization has evolved in name and in form through the years, its purpose has remained to help young women draw closer to their Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
There are around 4,000 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Katy. Any girl aged 12-17 is welcome at Young Women meetings.