Well before the restructuring of Young Women programs in the early 2020s, major changes were already taking place in the experience of the average Latter-day Saint young woman in the years after she turned eighteen. Higher rates of missionary service at younger ages for women after the missionary age change in 2012 were only part of that story. The larger social trend of lower marriage rates and older average age at marriage continued to affect Latter-day Saints. By the beginning of the century, a majority of adult members across the global church were single, widowed, or divorced rather than married. For some time, married members still made up a majority of Latter-day Saint adults in the United States and Canada, but even those regions would reach the same demographic tipping point by 2019.⁶ Marriage and family relationships remained theologically and socially important for Latter-day Saints. But while generations of women had taken it for granted that they would primarily live their faith in the sphere of motherhood, in the 2010s, the need to prepare young women to act as disciples of Christ in diverse situations became more obvious.

In some ways, young women of the early twenty-first century were well prepared for this growing diversity of expectations about their futures. Researchers who studied generational differences divided young people during this period into two generational cohorts. Both cohorts—millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) and Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012)—were generally understood to be more diverse demographically as well as more accepting of diversity than any previous generation. In the United States, these generations were also set apart by lower rates of religious affiliation than earlier generations.⁷ In 2010, nearly one in four American adults under age thirty reported that they were no longer affiliated with the religious tradition they had been raised in. At the same time, however, most continued to believe in absolute standards of right and wrong.⁸ Most members of both generations also expressed a strong desire to create a more equitable world.⁹

In some areas of advocacy, the hopes of these younger generations about the future could be in tension with Latter-day Saint teachings about gender, marriage, and family. In 2013, a majority of Americans recognized some degree of conflict between their religious beliefs and same-sex marriages, while 70 percent of American millennials supported legal recognition for same-sex marriage.¹⁰ During that same period, Latter-day Saint leaders and members worked to balance teachings on chastity and marriage with the divine command to love all God’s children. Church efforts included the 2012 launch and subsequent expansions of a website dedicated to promoting under-standing of sexual orientation within a religious context, as well as the church’s 2015 support for a model law in Utah designed to promote both religious freedom and nondiscrimination for LGBTQ individuals.¹¹ Still, there was a contrast between the attitudes of straightforward acceptance many young people preferred and the more complex range of attitudes in religious communities. In one 2014 survey, 31 percent of American millennials who had left their childhood religion cited concerns over the treatment of LGBTQ people as an important factor in their decision.¹²

In other arenas, Latter-day Saints were particularly well prepared to help young people take an active part in making a difference in the world. As they had in previous generations, church leaders and organizations worked to help empower young people to serve others. An increased focus on building missionary skills during the youth years was one striking example. Almost a decade before the missionary age change was announced, church leaders released a new missionary training manual titled Preach My Gospel. In contrast to previous missionary materials, Preach My Gospel was actively promoted for use by young women and young men before they were old enough for missionary service.¹³

After 2012, this emphasis on missionary preparation expanded even more explicitly to young women. Elaine Dalton, Young Women general president at the time of the announcement, felt that the organization’s longstanding emphasis on temple worship dovetailed with mission preparation. “When a young woman is worthy to enter the temple, then she is also prepared to serve a mission,” she explained. Dalton noted that Personal Progress requirements like reading the Book of Mormon or mentoring others prepared young women for missionary service and that values and goal-setting experiences would benefit those who served. “Heavenly Father loves and trusts His precious daughters, and now, as never before, is the time to flood the earth with their virtue, their strong spirits and their light,” she stated.¹⁴ With the growing number of young women serving missions shortly after their years in Young Women, outside observers took note. One article reported, “Waves of women . . . are taking part in the church’s crucial coming-of-age ritual, returning home from their missions with unprecedented scriptural fluency, new confidence and new ideas about themselves.”¹⁵ While full-time missionary service played a role in strengthening this confidence and religious competence, for most Latter-day Saints who served, the missionary program built on a foundation laid during the teenage years.

Church leaders continued to work to strengthen that foundation for missionary service as well as lifelong service and leadership in the church. In 2013, the church introduced a new youth curriculum entitled Come, Follow Me: Learning Resources for Youth to promote topic-based gospel literacy.¹⁶ In contrast to previous youth manuals, Come, Follow Me was designed for use both in mixed-gender youth Sunday School meetings and in Young Women and Young Men classes. It was the first time since the 1950s that young men and young women had shared the same curriculum. Like Preach My Gospel, the Come, Follow Me curriculum aimed to develop students’ capacity for adaptive thinking about application of principles. Local leaders were encouraged to involve youth in teaching, allowing them to build a useful missionary skill and moving closer to the longstanding goal of youth leadership.¹⁷

The same year the Come, Follow Me curriculum was released, Bonnie Lee Green Oscarson was appointed Young Women general president. Oscarson had served three times as a ward Young Women president, twice in a stake Young Women presidency, and nine years as a seminary teacher but had no previous experience working at church headquarters.¹⁸ “I think they deliberately wanted somebody that didn’t have any experience, that hadn’t come up through the ranks,” she later reflected. “I was told by apostles, ‘We need some fresh ideas and we want somebody to look at it with a fresh perspective.’”¹⁹

One way Oscarson and her counselors, Carol Foley McConkie and Neill Foote Marriott, sought fresh perspectives was through their board. In the months after being sustained, they began discussing the possibility of forming an international board to better represent the global church. In the past, women from international backgrounds had served on the board only while living within manageable travel distance of Salt Lake City. Digital communication technologies now allowed for simultaneous meetings from anywhere, and with encouragement from priesthood leaders at church headquarters and assistance from leaders in area offices around the world, the new presidency conducted a broader search.²⁰

Their new board consisted of four women living in the Salt Lake City area, along with five others living in New York, Peru, Brazil, South Africa, and Japan. Dorah Mkhabela, who lived in South Africa, saw the calling as an opportunity to directly represent the circumstances and needs of young women in Africa. Carmela Melero de Hooker, who lived in Peru, likewise saw new possibility in the digital gatherings of the international board. “I think it is a great opportunity for Latin American women to share their experiences, challenges, strengths, hopes and testimonies more directly with the board,” she said.²¹ Oscarson assigned the new board members to visit Young Women meetings and activities and report back about what challenges they observed. Feedback from the international board members proved especially helpful in revising the camp program, which, despite earlier attempts at internationalization, was still “North American centric,” as Oscarson put it.²²

The new presidency also brought their own fresh perspectives. In addition to ward-level experience in Young Women, Oscarson and her counselors each had experience with missionary work. Oscarson had served alongside her husband in leading the Sweden Göteborg Mission.²³ Both her counselors had worked alongside their husbands in leading missions and remembered joining the church themselves. McConkie’s family joined the church when she was a little girl, and being sealed to her family in the temple was a formative experience for her. Marriott converted as a young adult in Boston, Massachusetts.²⁴

In 2015, Oscarson brought her past mission experience, as well as her connection to the church’s young women, to a new assignment when she became the first woman to serve on the Missionary Executive Council, the leading council over missionary work. This change was part of a broader effort to integrate women as members of key councils at the top levels of church leadership: the Relief Society general president, Linda Kjar Burton, was appointed to the Priesthood Executive Council (renamed the Priesthood and Family Executive Council), and the Primary general president, Rosemary Mix Wixom, was placed on the Temple and Family History Executive Council. Each of these three committees, which had been established by Harold B. Lee in the correlation era, was led by a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.²⁵

Ardeth Kapp, who had served on correlation committees under Lee’s leadership, had predicted this kind of change in policy, envisioning a day when women would serve as members of these key committees.²⁶ Since the 1990s, church leaders had emphasized the importance of councils on the ward and stake level and had stressed the importance of women’s full participation in them.²⁷ Until 2015, however, that emphasis had not been reflected in the church’s highest councils. For Sheri L. Dew, former counselor in the Relief Society general presidency, the change represented a significant step in women’s leadership in the church. “To now have the Relief Society, Young Women and Primary general presidents assigned as standing members of these three major committees signals how invaluable women are at all levels of church government on matters affecting all members,” she explained.²⁸ While much of their work was still mediated by priesthood leaders, the presence of women leaders on these councils brought them into more direct participation in church decision-making than ever before.

These significant changes in women’s participation in church leadership structures accompanied other developments in young women’s church activities. Since Kapp’s presidency in the mid-1980s, the temple had been continually emphasized by the Young Women organization. Most of that emphasis, however, was on preparing for the future, when women often receiving their temple endowment in preparation for, and shortly before, the marriage sealing ordinance. By the 2010s, however, a growing number of young women were receiving the endowment within a few years of turning eighteen, either in preparation for a mission or out of a personal desire for deeper spiritual commitment. Moreover, leaders envisioned young women in their teens carrying current temple recommends and attending the temple regularly to perform proxy baptisms, both of which would support them in maintaining high moral standards.²⁹ More young women than ever before could attend the temple regularly, as construction of temples had accelerated throughout the world. In 1997, the church dedicated its fiftieth temple; by the end of 2013, 141 temples were in operation, with temples on every inhabited continent.³⁰

During the 2010s, church leaders also encouraged youth to become actively involved in the genealogical work that enabled proxy temple ordinances, drawing on the digital literacy that was now widespread among young people around the world. Apostle David A. Bednar suggested in 2011 that growing youth digital literacy might have a divine purpose. “Your fingers have been trained to text and tweet to accelerate and advance the work of the Lord—not just to communicate quickly with your friends,” he said. “The skills and aptitude evident among many young people today are a preparation to contribute to the work of salvation.”³¹ In 2012, the First Presidency issued a letter encouraging youth and young adults to “use for temple work their own family names or the names of ancestors of their ward and stake members,” which implied their participation in genealogical research and emphasized the temple as a site for current service rather than only as a symbol of future covenants.³² Youth also became involved in efforts called “indexing,” in which they downloaded images taken from sources such as handwritten parish rolls or probate records and then transcribed and uploaded the vital information in those sources in searchable form for use through the church’s FamilySearch website.³³

In Colombia, Camila Ortega Aza was among the many youth around the world who answered the call to become more involved in temple and family history work. A few years before her mission in 2018, she and other young women and men in her district in Tuluá accepted a challenge from their district president. They worked toward several goals related to indexing, preparing names for the temple, memorizing scriptures, and attending seminary. For weeks in the summer, youth in the three branches of the church in Tuluá met at the chapel on Sundays to peer at copies of old civic records on a computer screen. They also filled out their own family history records. On a few special occasions, youth joined in indexing marathons at the church. Throughout this time, their leaders encouraged them to pray for divine guidance so they could read and understand the old and unfamiliar handwriting and find the information they needed for their family history.

Then in October, the youth received a reward for their efforts: a special trip to Bogotá. There they spent an entire day at the temple doing baptisms for the people whose names they had indexed and then the next day enjoying themselves at an amusement park.³⁴ After the weeks of tedious indexing and the nine-hour bus trip to Bogotá, the time at the temple was a special experience for Camila. She felt her efforts in going through so many records had been worth it.³⁵

Hundreds of thousands of young women around the world participated in similar family history and indexing efforts throughout the second decade of the 2000s. In the Hampton Ward in Mesa, Arizona, youth indexed over six thousand names in seven weeks. “It has made my temple experiences that much more meaningful,” said Aleece McLaws, a seventeen-year-old young woman who participated in the challenge and attended the temple weekly. Aleece said she received spiritual help after praying when she encountered difficult handwriting in the sources she was indexing.³⁶ In some places, church leaders appointed young women and men as family history consultants to help train others in the work, adding a new dimension to longstanding efforts at building youth leadership. In July 2016, Alycia Ames and Kalli Laing, young family history consultants in the North Salt Lake Legacy Stake in Utah, helped organize local participation in a churchwide indexing event that extended over a weekend. “This event is going to bless someone’s life and your own,” Alycia promised participants as she led out in training them.³⁷

Throughout the decade, talks, articles, and activities invited youth to participate in temple and family history work.³⁸ Church publications highlighted positive experiences of young people involved in the work. The Church News featured a thirteen-year-old young woman from Utah, Ellie Tobiasson, who expressed her feelings in an artwork displayed at the Church History Museum at Temple Square. Ellie’s piece depicted her great-grandmother holding her when she was a baby. As Ellie described it, her great-grandmother looked into the heavens and saw “the temple that binds her to me and to her posterity and us to our ancestors.” Leaves in the painting represented a family tree. “I want to honor my ancestors’ lives by shining my light and sharing what they have given me,” Ellie said.³⁹ A few years later, the New Era spotlighted Rajane Samuels, a young woman in Jamaica. Rajane described how a family history goal helped her connect with her maternal grandmother and a paternal great-aunt. She further described feeling as though she had been led to some ancestors’ headstones, gaining a sense of connection with the dead. When she performed temple ordinances on their behalf, Rajane said she could feel their excitement and joy. “All I wanted to do was thank them for giving me the opportunity to be a part of something so special,” she said.⁴⁰

Such efforts came at a time when young people and their adult leaders wrestled with the promise and peril of an increasingly digital world. Millennials were digitally savvy, and Gen Z were fully fluent, having had little to no life experience in the world as it existed before the advent of smartphones.⁴¹ But technical proficiency did not necessarily imply social, emotional, or spiritual health. During this period, hundreds of articles and reports from scholars, news media, and religious leaders alike began asking questions about the benefits and damages of internet and social media use. Concerns included cyberbullying, internet addiction, and disconnection from family life.⁴² Numerous Latter-day Saint leaders, including Young Women general president Bonnie L. Oscarson, addressed these issues in their messages.⁴³

The Young Women organization and its members took advantage of new digital tools in many areas. Young women and local leaders were able to access more resources on specialized topics than were available in printed manuals. On its websites, the church published materials to help young people and their leaders more openly discuss issues such as mental health, sexual orientation, and questions about the church’s history.⁴⁴ Genealogical work, however, presented a striking site of intersection between religion, generational differences, and technological change in the early twenty-first century.

Caring for those in need had been central to the work of the church since its founding, and for decades Young Women general leaders had emphasized service in their programs and directives to local leaders. In the 2010s and 2020s, a typical young woman in the church might participate in service projects organized during a midweek Young Women activity or as a special weekend event, in other church group projects, in personal service projects as an expression of her discipleship or to fulfill a Young Women requirement, in informal service as opportunities arose in her community, and in personal or family involvement with civic and interfaith relief efforts.

In 2012, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania reported that the average American Latter-day Saint dedicated roughly nine times as many hours to unpaid service than the average American.⁴⁵ But most of that service was centered in the local congregation; only about a fifth represented outreach beyond the church.⁴⁶ To assist members and others in finding volunteering opportunities outside their usual circles, the church turned toward a digital solution. In 2012, the church launched a website in North America called JustServe.org, which would later expand to other countries. The website helped connect people looking for service opportunities with groups seeking volunteer service.⁴⁷ JustServe was utilized unevenly, but leaders and young women in some places used it regularly to organize the service that was already deeply ingrained in the culture of Young Women.⁴⁸

Large service efforts often arose in response to natural disasters around the world. In November 2013, one of the strongest tropical storms on record hit the Visayas region of the Philippines. The government’s report on the typhoon’s effects indicated that 800,000 people were preemptively evacuated, 16 million affected, and 6,300 or more killed by the storm.⁴⁹ Many young women in Tacloban, on Leyte island, were among those who left their homes before the storm hit to live temporarily in one of the two hundred Latter-day Saint meetinghouses used as evacuation centers. They joined ten thousand volunteers to assemble food and hygiene kits and distribute relief supplies, often under the auspices of the church’s Helping Hands program, which was more oriented to disaster relief than was JustServe. Less-affected stakes on Cebu, west of Leyte, provided support to the hardest-hit stakes.⁵⁰ Youth were prepared to respond to dramatic needs through the culture of routine service. Young women regularly joined other Latter-day Saints in Helping Hands efforts to help with projects in education, health, and cleanup in public areas.⁵¹

Service activities were intended not only to address the immediate needs of those being served but also to foster a proactive service-oriented mindset in young people. Young women throughout the church were encouraged to watch for and take action to fill needs in their own homes, wards, and Young Women groups. In one general conference address, President Bonnie Oscarson commended young Latter-day Saints’ desires to serve and make a difference in the world but added, “I also think that sometimes it’s easy to miss some of the greatest opportunities to serve others because we are distracted or because we are looking for ambitious ways to change the world and we don’t see that some of the most significant needs we can meet are within our own families, among our friends, in our wards, and in our communities.”⁵² She expressed hope that young women would act as disciples of Christ in the ways they directed their attention and efforts in their immediate circles.

A few young women in American Fork, Utah, incorporated this kind of local service into their regular ward experience. When Becca Sagers joined her Beehive class in 2012, her mother, Diana, was called as one of the Beehive leaders. Becca was born with a congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection, which led to other conditions including cerebral palsy, hearing and sight loss, developmental delays, and epilepsy. Diana helped facilitate interactions between Becca and the other young women in her Beehive class.⁵³ Diana had heard from friends about young women who had completed the Personal Progress program by proxy for a classmate who had disabilities and proposed having Becca’s classmates do the same for her. While the structure of the achievement program was not a good fit for Becca’s abilities, improvising on that structure became a source of connection and joy. Some of the young women completed requirements with Becca, and others simply did them on her behalf. Rachel Weston painted a piece of art for Becca. From a photograph, she painted Becca at age two, with her glasses and hearing aids, and unable to sit up. On the other half of the canvas, she painted Becca as Rachel envisioned her after this life, when her disabilities would be healed. Diana had the painting professionally framed and hung it in Becca’s room.⁵⁴ When they completed requirements for Becca, many of the young women shared their experiences in notes they gave her, and Diana and her family saw just how special the experience had been for those young women.⁵⁵ Members of the group felt bound together through their shared efforts at Christlike service.

Many young women in Utah learned to serve people with disabilities through a program called Special Needs Mutual. The program provided weeknight activities for people of all ages with disabilities and invited young women and men from nearby wards to help facilitate participation and socialization for the participants, giving people with disabilities a Young Women or Young Men experience of their own.⁵⁶ The program had begun in 1972 with a group of nine people participating in summer activities. That number swelled to twenty-seven two years later, with participants meeting every Thursday evening for drama and sports activities and spiritual discussions.⁵⁷ By the late 1990s, the program had expanded to include twelve groups in and around Salt Lake City and served around eight hundred people with all kinds of disabilities.⁵⁸ A decade later, the program had further expanded as far south as St. George, Utah, and was open to youth from any religious affiliation or practice. It was still going strong in the 2010s.⁵⁹

The April 2018 general conference began a period of major changes for the church. The church’s president, Thomas S. Monson, had died in January, and Russell M. Nelson, the senior apostle, succeeded him. He had been ordained by the other members of the Quorum of the Twelve in January; he and a new First Presidency were sustained by church members during the April conference. Though Nelson was ninety-three years old at the time he took office, he was vigorous in mind and body and ready to lead the church through this period of change.

At the same conference, church members sustained a new Young Women general presidency whose significant leadership and missionary experience had prepared them to lead the Young Women organization in this dynamic period. Bonnie Hillam Cordon, who was sustained as the church’s fifteenth Young Women general president, was a business executive and entrepreneur and had been serving as first counselor in the Primary general presidency at the time of her call. She had also served in various leadership positions in all three of the women’s organizations of the church. She and her first counselor, Michelle Daines Craig, had both served full-time missions as young women, and Cordon had served as a mission leader with her husband in the Brazil Curitiba Mission. Rebecca Mitchell Craven, Cordon’s second counselor, shared a similar experience, having recently served with her husband in presiding over the North Carolina Charlotte Mission.⁶⁰

Later that year at the October general conference, leaders implemented sweeping changes meant to facilitate a greater emphasis on simplicity and adaptability. “It is time,” Nelson stated in his opening remarks, “for a home-centered Church, supported by what takes place inside our branch, ward, and stake buildings,” rather than thinking of “church” as something that happens primarily in the meetinghouse.⁶¹ Changes announced during the previous April conference and in later conferences reflected this mindset. These changes included Nelson’s announcement that the church’s system of member visiting and service would be simplified and renamed ministering. Young women could now be assigned as “ministering sisters” at the age of fourteen, serving alongside an adult companion.⁶² The most prominent change reduced the three-hour Sunday meeting block, in place since 1980, to a two-hour Sunday meeting schedule. Sacrament meetings would continue to take place every week, but Young Women Sunday class meetings (along with priesthood quorum and Relief Society meetings) would take place every other week, alternating with Sunday School. Church leaders encouraged members to replace the reduced communal worship time with individual or family gospel study. The church provided brief, image-rich manuals for families and individuals to use in their home gospel study and in Sunday School instruction. This curriculum adopted the title already in use for youth lessons: Come, Follow Me.⁶³

The focus on simplicity and flexibility was tied to a broad, repeated emphasis throughout the church’s messaging on the centrality of Jesus Christ and His Atonement. Also in October 2018, Nelson announced a “course correction,” teaching that the church should be consistently referred to by its full name—The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—rather than nicknames like the “LDS Church” or the “Mormon Church.” Nelson declared, “When we omit His name from His Church, we are inadvertently removing Him as the central focus of our lives.”⁶⁴ Leaders sought to focus church members, including young women, on understanding their membership in the church not as an end in itself but as a means of making covenants with God, accessing spiritual power in their lives, and helping others along what Nelson and other leaders referred to as the covenant path.⁶⁵ This came to be expressed as “the work of salvation and exaltation.”⁶⁶ The significant structural and programming changes to follow would seek to integrate young women more fully into this work.

Those changes would also be driven by shifts in understanding, language, and practice regarding women’s relationship to priesthood authority. Those shifts had been ongoing throughout the church’s history but took on new shape and urgency in the twenty-first century. The church had always ordained men exclusively. By the mid-1900s it was broadly understood that while women shared in the blessings made available by the priesthood, they did not hold or share its authority. This understanding animated the 1970s correlation movement.⁶⁷ It contributed to a divergence between the Young Men and Young Women organizations, as leaders sought to focus young men’s programs on understanding and exercising their priesthood duties while retaining Boy Scouts as the activity channel. This shift had led to ongoing concerns about a lack of parity in the budgets and visibility of the Young Men and Young Women organizations.

Church leaders in the second decade of the twenty-first century worked to develop a new understanding about how women exercised the spiritual authority of the priesthood without ordination to priesthood offices. In a landmark 2014 general conference address, apostle Dallin H. Oaks explicated how the concept of priesthood authority included women. “We are not accustomed to speaking of women having the authority of the priesthood in their Church callings, but what other authority can it be?” he asked rhetorically. “Whoever functions in an office or calling received from one who holds priesthood keys exercises priesthood authority in performing her or his assigned duties.” Oaks’s formulation expanded the understanding of priesthood authority to include women.⁶⁸

Adult women and young women were taught that they should understand their service within this framework. “As you perform the duties of your calling, you exercise priesthood authority,” Bonnie Cordon affirmed while addressing Young Women class presidencies.⁶⁹ Many addresses and updates to curriculum focused on women’s access to revelation and the centrality of councils in proper church administration.⁷⁰ These themes—acknowledging women’s ability to exercise priesthood authority, expanding female stewardship, and focusing on personal revelation—marked a stark difference from the era of change fifty years before. Young women growing up in this new era would hear repeatedly and emphatically that the church valued receiving inspiration, speaking up in discussions, and accessing priesthood power in callings and covenants in their spiritual and religious lives.

When Cordon, Craig, and Craven took office in March 2018, discussions were already well underway regarding how to create a more uniform, simplified, and gospel-centered youth program that would better meet the needs of a diverse global membership. The new Young Women presidency joined a working group to reconceptualize the church’s Young Men and Young Women programs. The group knew the church would soon announce the end of its century-long affiliation with the Boy Scouts of America, and they were commissioned to make the broadest changes to the youth program since the correlation efforts of the 1970s.⁷¹ In their discussions, Cordon felt spiritual direction that young women needed to understand three crucial things: their identity as daughters of God, their belonging within the church community, and their purpose in contributing to God’s work of salvation and exaltation—what she termed “the cause of Christ.”⁷²

Among the first significant changes introduced was the age requirement for entry into the youth program, which for girls had stood at twelve since the 1930s. In December 2018, the church announced that incoming girls and boys would now advance as a group from Primary, the church’s organization for children, into youth classes and quorums at the beginning of each year rather than at their birthday.⁷³ This meant that eleven-year-old girls joined Young Women each January.

More changes came in fall 2019. In a special broadcast in September, Cordon and other leaders introduced a new program, known simply as Children and Youth, to replace all other achievement programs for both girls and boys.⁷⁴ This meant that, for young women, Personal Progress was discontinued, along with the values and detailed requirements.

The Children and Youth program invited young people to center their personal development on Jesus Christ and set goals in the areas of intellectual, physical, spiritual, and social growth.⁷⁵ Its simple structure was oriented toward local initiative and individual inspiration, emphasizing the home-centered and church-supported framework.⁷⁶ A new Children and Youth website (the content of which was also accessible through the mobile Gospel Library app) provided extensive videos, articles, and ideas for goals and activities.⁷⁷

By making individual and local adaptability the core of the program, rather than an added accessibility feature, leaders believed that the simplified program addressed the diverse needs of members. Cordon acknowledged that the “home-centered” ideal embedded in the program might be challenging for some young people who lived in homes where parents were not supportive of their religious efforts, but the hope was that everyone could find ways to bring gospel learning into the home, no matter their family situation. In that effort, the “church-supported” half of the equation remained fundamental. Local members—especially class presidencies and adult leaders—would play an essential role in ministering to young people and building a ward family where vulnerable youth would find the support they needed to live their religion.⁷⁸

The new program maintained longstanding traditions, such as Young Women camps and jewelry and other tokens of recognition, though the new awards emphasized participation over achievement.⁷⁹ Church leaders hoped other activities, such as youth conferences and pioneer trek reenactments, would continue under local direction, with adaptation to local needs.⁸⁰ In addition, multiday youth gatherings known as For the Strength of Youth (FSY) conferences, which had formerly been held only in areas outside the United States and Canada, were made available to all youth worldwide on an alternating-year basis.⁸¹ Though leaders in 2019 may not have recognized the precedent, these FSY gatherings could be seen as a fulfillment of hopes expressed as far back as 1975 that the large, vibrant gatherings that had characterized the MIA would be continued at local and regional levels.

In the October 2019 general conference, Cordon described further changes to the Young Women program. Eliciting an audible reaction from the audience, she announced that the Young Women organization’s standard three-class division—along with the accompanying names of Beehive, Mia Maid, and Laurel—would be retired. While the decision to make this move had not been easy, it was based on internal research showing that most church units had a relatively small number of young women attending—an average of eleven worldwide but only nine in units outside the United States—making the three-class division difficult to implement.⁸² Underscoring the importance of adaptation to varied circumstances, local units were to choose, based on their individual demographics, how many young women classes to organize in their branch or ward and what the age boundaries should be for each class.⁸³ Along with the new class structure came a reinvigoration of what had been called shadow leadership, first introduced fifty years earlier, now bolstered by an expanded understanding of women’s authority to serve in the church.

Changes to the Young Men organization echoed iterations implemented (and ultimately reversed) in the 1970s. To align with scriptural guidance that bishops preside over the Aaronic Priesthood, ward-level Young Men presidencies were discontinued. Bishoprics would now directly oversee the Aaronic Priesthood quorums with adult men called as advisers. Young men serving as quorum presidencies would, like young women class leaders, take the lead, supported by the adults.⁸⁴ These sweeping changes meant the ward Young Women president would now work side by side and counsel directly with the bishop (bishops had previously had the option to delegate this role to one of their counselors), and bishops would hold increased responsibility for the oversight of youth programs generally. Significantly, ward budgets for youth activities would be divided equitably between the young men and the young women based on the number of each.⁸⁵

Other changes announced at this conference also contributed to greater parity in the roles of men and women in the church. The first related to terminology. The term auxiliary would no longer be used, with each church entity (including Young Women) being called an organization and adult leaders referred to as officers.⁸⁶ The second, however, would have a direct and meaningful impact on the experience of young women. While records suggest that in the past women had served as formal witnesses to ordinances, including temple ordinances of baptism and marriage sealing, by the 1970s this function had come to be associated with priesthood office and therefore was performed only by men.⁸⁷ Church president Russell M. Nelson announced that the witness role was open to both male and female members, including youth.⁸⁸ The opportunity to serve as witnesses during baptisms allowed young women to take part in creating a covenant community and to act in a recognized capacity in settings where women had formerly been observers. Shortly after this announcement, Grace Woodworth, a young woman from Victor, New York, served as a witness for the first time while participating in baptisms for the dead in the Palmyra New York Temple. “It was a special experience to be able to be a witness . . . for the first time. I remember making sure the person was fully submerged and nodding at the person marking the names,” she reflected. “This change for young women to be witnesses for baptisms for the dead was meaningful because it allowed me to see that the Lord is eager for His daughters to participate in His work, and He trusts us to be instruments in His hands.”⁸⁹

The new changes extended to young people’s week-to-week experiences, as leaders announced new themes for both young women and young men. Though young men previously had MIA slogans and the Boy Scout Oath, this was the first time the Young Men’s organization had adopted a theme similar in nature to the Young Women theme. The Young Women organization, however, was updating a framework that had existed since the 1980s.

Initially, Cordon, Craig, and Craven expected that they would leave the theme largely untouched, though they had planned to remove the values and incorporate them into the new achievement program. Since Ardeth Kapp’s introduction of the Young Women values and theme in the 1980s, the organization’s general presidents had tried to preserve its basic structure as they introduced incremental changes. Cordon said, however, that they very quickly felt “an immense nudge” from the Spirit, spurring them to change the theme more extensively than they had planned. Now, through a collaborative process that included key input from the First Presidency, Cordon and her counselors arrived at a new theme they felt would express the principles that undergirded all the other changes happening in the church and in the organization at the time.⁹⁰ It read:

I am a beloved daughter of heavenly parents, with a divine nature and eternal destiny.

As a disciple of Jesus Christ, I strive to become like Him. I seek and act upon personal revelation and minister to others in His holy name.

I will stand as a witness of God at all times and in all things and in all places.

As I strive to qualify for exaltation, I cherish the gift of repentance and seek to improve each day. With faith, I will strengthen my home and family, make and keep sacred covenants, and receive the ordinances and blessings of the holy temple.⁹¹

The new theme resembled the one that had been at the heart of the organization for thirty-five years, but with substantial alterations, most notably an increased focus on Jesus Christ, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and covenant making. Recognizing that young women would stand and recite the theme in their Sunday meetings, Cordon and her presidency shifted the point of view from “we” to “I.” It expressed Cordon’s ideals of identity and belonging in three succinct phrases: “a beloved daughter of heavenly parents,” “a disciple of Jesus Christ,” and “a witness of God.”⁹² Though the theme closely resembled its predecessor in its concluding sentence, within the context of current church discourse, this statement reflected young women’s engagement in the Lord’s work of salvation and exaltation.⁹³

Audrey Glende, a young woman from Salt Lake City who was in her final year in Young Women when the new theme was introduced, valued the new language on cherishing the gift of repentance: “It reminds us that we shouldn’t be ashamed or fearful of the repentance process but rather appreciative of its availability.” She also appreciated the implicit reference to a Heavenly Mother in the phrase “heavenly parents,” which had been part of the initial proposed theme some thirty-four years earlier. Audrey was likewise moved by the more active, immediate, and personal language that moved beyond preparation for to participation in the work of salvation. And, though the church was continuing to globalize, Audrey said, the changes in the theme and programs helped her feel that a young woman’s experience was becoming more individualized.⁹⁴

The new Aaronic Priesthood quorum theme focused on similar principles. Announced in a special broadcast a month following general conference, the theme read:

I am a beloved son of God, and He has a work for me to do.

With all my heart, might, mind, and strength, I will love God, keep my covenants, and use His priesthood to serve others, beginning in my own home.

As I strive to serve, exercise faith, repent, and improve each day, I will qualify to receive temple blessings and the enduring joy of the gospel.

I will prepare to become a diligent missionary, loyal husband, and loving father by being a true disciple of Jesus Christ.

I will help prepare the world for the Savior’s return by inviting all to come unto Christ and receive the blessings of His Atonement.⁹⁵

The church’s new home-centered, church-supported paradigm became especially relevant when the worldwide SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic struck early in 2020, sending much of the world into lockdown and disrupting economies, education systems, and everyday lives. The church acted quickly to follow local public health directives by suspending meetings and gatherings, including regular Sunday worship services. Members were encouraged to worship in their families each week, and in many areas, priesthood holders, with authorization from their bishops, administered the sacrament in their homes.⁹⁶ It was a time of unprecedented adjustments and widespread uncertainty, particularly for young people, whose lives often revolved around friends and social activities. Unavoidably, implementation of the new Children and Youth program and other changes to the youth organizations was disrupted.

With both church meetings and school classes shifting to virtual formats, leaders looked for ways to help young women stay connected and build spiritual strength amid challenging circumstances. “Despite the challenges of our day, through technology, we can still counsel, we can still hold meetings, we can still care for one another, we can still minister,” advised the Young Women general presidency.⁹⁷ In Copenhagen, Denmark, young women began holding virtual gatherings, during which they participated in a “positive minute,” sharing spiritual thoughts and good experiences. In the Morada do Sol Ward in Brazil, class presidencies organized online meetings to discuss the gospel, set goals, and maintain commitment to living the gospel. Most of these girls were the only members of the church in their families, so the sustained connection and encouragement were critical.⁹⁸ In some stakes, virtual activities occurred on a much larger scale. One stake in Norway, for example, held a virtual youth conference in which over one hundred young people participated, and the St. George Utah Morningside Stake planned a virtual young women camp. These and similar activities were planned and led by the youth themselves. “The young women are our greatest resource to help us determine what young women need,” the presidency observed.⁹⁹

At headquarters, Cordon recognized almost immediately the potential for technology to enable many kinds of leadership training and communication that could no longer happen in person. The Young Women organization became the first of the five general church organizations to pilot stake leadership training through an online meeting platform called Zoom, holding the first such session on 29 April 2020, soon after pandemic restrictions were put in place in the United States. By the end of the year, the Young Women leadership had conducted over sixty online training sessions in North America. As they met virtually with local stake Young Women leaders, they paralleled the actions of their nineteenth- and early twentieth-century predecessors, who prioritized meeting with local leaders and traveled extensively to do so. Now, however, it was done from the convenience of home. Like many other adaptations that originated in the pandemic, these virtual meetings have continued.¹⁰⁰

Work on other proposed initiatives continued during the pandemic. Of these, the most significant for the Young Women’s organization was a thorough revision of the For the Strength of Youth booklet. Established just before the pandemic and working throughout it, a committee comprising the Young Women and Young Men general presidencies, members of their boards, and staff members from various church departments reviewed the booklet and made recommendations for updating it.¹⁰¹ Rather than including detailed lists of rules, the committee sought to emphasize Jesus Christ as the central figure of strength in the lives of youth and to highlight the value of understanding eternal truths and strengthening one’s relationship with the Savior as the foundation for making inspired decisions.¹⁰² As part of the process, the Young Women and Young Men presidencies each assigned a representative to pay close attention to the accessibility of the final language for a young, global audience. Language accessibility was an important consideration in another significant change, this one to church magazines. Fifty years after its inception, the New Era magazine was renamed For the Strength of Youth. The New Era had been available only in English, but the new magazine would be published in print and digitally each month in twenty-three languages and bimonthly in another twenty-four languages, with selected content posted online in an additional forty languages.¹⁰³

Even as the Young Women organization continued to change, a sense of history and legacy remained important, and leaders had been planning for a meaningful sesquicentennial celebration in 2020.¹⁰⁴ Given pandemic conditions, there was no large-scale in-person event. Instead, the Young Women presidency issued a “My 150” challenge to young women, encouraging them to do something related to the number 150 to celebrate the anniversary.¹⁰⁵ Young women chose to complete activities such as reading 150 conference talks, running 150 miles, reading the Book of Mormon in 150 days, serving 150 meals to the homeless, raising $15,000 for diabetes research, and posting 150 inspiring messages on social media.¹⁰⁶ Many of the projects were related to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic—young women offered service and support to the elderly, the sick, medical workers, and others who were affected.¹⁰⁷

On 15 November 2020, Bonnie Cordon and her counselors shared these and other examples during a worldwide broadcast. Echoing the satellite broadcasts of the 1980s, it was a multicultural, multimedia production showcasing young women’s talents, testimonies, and accomplishments. It opened with a montage of young women reciting the new Young Women theme in their own languages. A brief, animated video gave an overview of the organization’s history and closed with an emphasis on young women’s participation in God’s work of salvation and exaltation in preparing the world for the second coming of Jesus Christ—emphasizing their integration into the work of the church rather than focusing on the organization itself.¹⁰⁸

According to World Health Organization data, deaths related to the pandemic peaked in many regions in early 2021, with substantial spikes recurring through early 2022.¹⁰⁹ After observing a strong overall downward trend in cases over the next year, the World Health Organization declared an end to COVID-19’s designation as a public health emergency in May 2023.¹¹⁰ During the pandemic, relationships in the Young Women organization became a vital point of connection for many young women, and opportunities to provide service were meaningful. For many young women and local leaders, however, the goal-setting structure of the Children and Youth program fell by the wayside as simply maintaining connection became paramount. By 2023, ward and branch Young Women groups around the world were once again consistently meeting, but the degree to which they had implemented the new programs varied greatly.

In November 2022, President Russell M. Nelson extended a call to Emily Belle Oswald Freeman to serve as the next general president of the Young Women organization. Freeman was well known in the Latter-day Saint community, especially in Utah, as an author and speaker, with a self-defined mission to help people connect to Jesus Christ. She taught in the Church Educational System for many years and developed expertise in the scriptures, which she shared in a popular podcast.¹¹¹

Freeman’s call was not publicly announced and confirmed by a sustaining vote until the April 2023 general conference, after which Freeman and her counselors had four additional months of transition time to learn from the previous presidency before formally taking office on 1 August. Freeman was grateful for the lengthy period of preparation. “Right when I got called, I started reading,” she recalled.¹¹² Her primary focus during that period was the history of the Young Women organization. She took up volumes of the Young Woman’s Journal and the 1911 History, underlined quotes from Susa Young Gates, examined photographs and reports of the 1925 MIA Jubilee, and thought back to her own memories as a young woman during the presidency of Ardeth Kapp and as a ward Young Women president during the presidency of Elaine Dalton. “From day one, it was my intent to go back to our roots,” Freeman said. “What could we learn that would strengthen us now?”¹¹³

As counselors, Freeman called Tamara Wood Runia and Andrea Muñoz Spannaus. Runia had professional experience in journalism and nonprofit service experience with the Provo Food & Care Coalition. In 2018, she and her husband were called to lead the Australia Sydney Mission.¹¹⁴ While there, Runia saw firsthand how the pandemic’s isolation exacted a toll on young people—in 2020, Australia closed its borders while her youngest daughter, who was in her late teens, was in the United States.¹¹⁵ Spannaus had served on the Relief Society Advisory Council just before her call to the Young Women general presidency. She and her husband had previously served as mission leaders in the Mexico Cuernavaca Mission.¹¹⁶ Spannaus had joined the church at age nine and first served as a Young Women president in her home ward in Argentina at age eighteen. She later served as a local Young Women leader in several countries, including France, where she was called to serve even though she did not speak the language. Spannaus often found herself referring to a manual in English and then sharing her thoughts in Spanish for a bilingual counselor to translate into French. Experiences like these left her attuned to questions of how to best nourish faith and relationships across differences in setting, language, and culture.¹¹⁷

For one of their first meetings together, Freeman arranged to take Runia and Spannaus on a tour of the Lion House, which had recently been closed for stabilization and restoration, so they could experience the space where Brigham Young called his daughters together for the inaugural meetings of the Young Ladies’ Department of the Ladies’ Cooperative Retrenchment Association. Afterward, Freeman kept a replica of the Young family prayer bell on her desk as a reminder of how the whole Young Women organization had grown from something so small and personal as the ringing of a bell and a group of women gathering. She also prepared binders of readings to help her counselors join her study of the organization’s history.

From April to August 2023, Freeman and her counselors were able to learn from the outgoing presidency and shadow them during meetings of the church’s key councils. They also had dedicated space in the basement of the Relief Society Building to use for advance planning. The three hung butcher paper on the walls and filled it with notes about their insights and potential future directions for Young Women.¹¹⁸ As they planned, Freeman and her counselors did not feel a need to re-create any given moment in the organization’s history. “Over the years, some things have not worked,” Freeman reflected, “but some things actually have.”¹¹⁹ The role of a modern leader, in her mind, was to sift through failed and successful past experiments to learn from both.

The study directly informed her actions. After reading about the young single women who served on the YLMIA board in the early twentieth century, Freeman felt inspired to call young single adult women to serve on her own advisory council, as the board was now called.¹²⁰ While planning for upcoming broadcasts, Freeman arranged to meet with and seek counsel from Ardeth Kapp. Reflecting on her own time as a young woman during Kapp’s tenure, Freeman said, “She was a genius at helping you feel like you were a part of something bigger. . . . I remember how powerful it was.”¹²¹ Freeman, her counselors, and her council also revisited old questions about how the organization operated. What had been the purpose for and power in class names? What were the historical advantages and challenges of developing a strong conjoint relationship with the Young Men? How could their organization best foster strong relationships between young women and their local leaders?

Like every preceding presidency, Freeman and her counselors continued to wrestle with what it meant to be both an organization for youth and an organization for women. They felt strongly that their organization should prepare young women for lifelong discipleship and for local leadership roles across the global church. Every young woman, they concluded, needed to develop four foundational skills: how to run a presidency meeting, how to counsel, how to plan an activity, and how to minister. “If you can learn those things as part of your discipleship,” Freeman said, “you can run the church everywhere.”¹²² As they considered plans for structured experiences and celebrations, developing those foundational skills was a constant underlying priority. Because both women and men serve in presidencies, plan events, and serve in the church’s lay ministering system, strengthening those skills could provide impetus for shared efforts and programs with the young men.

At the same time, Freeman remained conscious of the distinctly female nature of the Young Women organization. During a visit with past president Elaine Dalton, Freeman sought counsel on the limits of what could be achieved by offering the same programs and written resources to young women and young men. “There are things that they will find strength in together,” she remembered Dalton advising her, “and there’s also strength to be found in their unique identities.”¹²³ Ideas about women’s roles had changed substantially over the course of the church’s history, but Freeman remained attached to the idea of an underlying female strength.

Learning to identify that strength became a major goal for her. She looked for it in a passage of Latter-day Saint scripture addressed to Emma Hale Smith, the wife of Joseph Smith.¹²⁴ She looked for it in the members of the Young Women organization during an ambitious travel itinerary designed to give her deeper personal connection to the global church in her presidency’s formative first year. And she felt it when she worked in the Relief Society Building, where she and many past presidents had their offices. “Imagine the creativity that has lived in these walls—and the wisdom, and the insight that came, and the revelation,” she said. Working as a successor to past generations of female leaders reminded her of traditions from many cultures about women as figures who passed down wisdom. “You go down and stand in that Presidents Room and you feel the strength that only comes from women,” she remarked. “There is a power there.”¹²⁵

In 1880, when Elmina Taylor was called as the first general president of the Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association, she presided over nearly two hundred largely autonomous local organizations. Taylor traveled thousands of miles by wagon and railroad to deliver messages of faith and encouragement to the church’s young women and their leaders in the relatively compact geographical region where Latter-day Saints had gathered to build their Zion community. As the organization’s sixteenth general president, Emily Belle Freeman presided over a complex organization with over half a million members in 182 countries.¹²⁶ She traveled around the globe by air and spoke to young women and their leaders around the world in person and via technology, harnessing social media and other online channels to reach the church’s youth. For both presidents, as for all the women who served between them, a personal commitment to discipleship and a desire to help young women develop their own spiritual strength animated ongoing innovation and a quest for religious inspiration.

While these leaders believed in an eternal, unchanging God, they understood that organizational structures, communication tools, and the emphasis of their messages needed to be tailored to their moment. They understood that they would need to constantly engage with new questions about how to reach youth as culture changed and the church’s belief in ongoing revelation brought about change to church policies and procedures. Leaders also revisited the same questions their predecessors had considered and often came to different conclusions about how to meet the demands of different times. The organization therefore changed cyclically, moving between poles of independence and collaboration with Young Men, between centrally issued prescriptions for running programs and space for local adaptation. Freeman recognized the shifting and pliable nature of the organization, even as it was built on a firm foundation. “We’re going back to our roots,” Freeman remarked, “but we’re also living.”¹²⁷

The visions of individual discipleship that moved young women to organize their own retrenchment associations, the lofty aims of mutual improvement that inspired the individual and collective growth of members, and the religious values inspired by faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ have persisted through changes in policy, programs, and procedures. In 1890, Elmina Taylor rejoiced in the fruits she observed within those who participated in the fledgling Young Ladies’ Mutual Improvement Association, stating, “The good seed which has been so abundantly sown has taken root in their hearts, and filled them with an increased desire for knowledge and an understanding of those truths which will tend to their most perfect development as daughters of God.”¹²⁸ As they have nurtured divine identity and fostered commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ, Taylor’s successors have had—and will have—both the freedom and the obligation to revisit previous traditions and assumptions again and again. In each generation, after all, the core of the organization has never been its evolving programs or emphases, but the people it served during an important stage of life. As Michelle Craig observed in her 2020 sesquicentennial broadcast remarks, “The true beauty of our history is the young women who lived it.”¹²⁹