It's a Funny Story

My mom got to teach the always delightful lesson topic of "procreation" yesterday for her 12 year-old young womens class. Ha! I remember those days of what I swear was a monthly lesson about marriage, chastity, virtue, etc, etc. And if you had asked me right when I turned 12 what chastity meant, I don't think I could tell you. (Or maybe I knew...sometimes I am smarter than I give myself credit for!) But whether I not I knew what chastity meant when I was twelve years old, there is no doubt I knew what it was after 6 years in young womens!!

Six years worth of awkward class lessons, awkward combined classes with the bishop, awkward firesides and "standards nights," awkward efy discussions....I can go on forever! Young mens/young womens serves a lot of purposes, and one purpose that it definitely serves is teaching you what chastity means.

So yesterday in preparation for her lesson, my mom turns to my dear 12 year old brother and asks, "do you know what 'chaste' means?"

He confidently answered, "yeah, like 'he chased me down the street!'"

He may not have known then, but he sure does now, and probably will never forget.

But I will cut him some slack for not knowing because a) he's twelve, and b) at least 80% of the people I taught on my mission (male/female, young/old, chaste/non-chaste) did not know what the word chastity meant. And then there was even that one time when a member said in a branch family home evening that the word of wisdom is "the wisdom we get from reading the word of god." A random side note but funny all the same.

The end!

*And for the record, I am proud of my mormon upbringing and for all the hours spent in young womens learning about chastity, the word of wisdom, and many other things. It has served me well