1994
Advocate for Abstinence
June 1994


“Advocate for Abstinence,” Ensign, June 1994, 70

Advocate for Abstinence

Bonnie Park didn’t mean to become a media celebrity or a national spokesperson. She just wanted to teach a life skills course in the local junior high school that focused on abstinence from premarital sexual activity. But ever since she started, reporters have been clamoring at her classroom door.

Sister Park, a returned missionary, mother of four, host to a number of foster children, and grandmother of thirteen, lives with her husband, Darrell, in the Hemet First Ward, Hemet California Stake. It’s not a large community by southern California standards, but it’s been featured on network news, national talk shows, and in the Wall Street Journal because of the curriculum Bonnie instigated there. It’s a program that teaches that waiting for involvement with a monogamous person in a loving, committed marriage is the best prevention against AIDS.

Although a few murmurings have been heard from some national organizations, Bonnie has received an amazing amount of support from all over the United States and Canada. Twenty-one years of teaching and Church and community service have enabled her to answer questions from the media calmly, eloquently, succinctly, and accurately.

Bonnie serves on the local school board, is a Gospel Doctrine teacher in her ward, and is the stake Young Women camp director. Many of the youth in her ward have been through her program at school.—Lisa Johnson, Salt Lake City, Utah