2009
Raising the Standard of Virtue
July 2009


“Raising the Standard of Virtue,” New Era, July 2009, 38

Raising the Standard of Virtue

Dressed in their homemade, bright yellow, tie-dyed shirts, the young women of the Concord Second Ward in Walnut Creek, California, raised their flag of virtue after hiking to the top of nearby Mount Diablo.

Following an inspiring fireside focused on the importance of virtue, each young woman took a strip of yellow fabric and wrote her pledge of virtue on it. Then they tied all the strips of fabric to a discarded tree branch. The next morning, the young women carried their banner on a hike around the summit of Mount Diablo, hoisting it high as a standard to the world at a point overlooking their homes in the valley below. The young women linked arms, symbolizing their unity in following the standards of the gospel and in their love for each other and for the Savior.

Beehive Morgan March said, “As we stood together as a group of Young Women, it made me feel grateful for all of the girls who had the same values as me. As we go through hard times we always know that there are people with our same standards.”

Photograph courtesy of Laura Berrett