Plan on Listening

If we are really going to prepare ourselves for the Second Coming of Christ, the Millennial Day, there's something we should get straight.

I attended a Saturday student symposium today at Brigham Young University. Things got going at 9:30 a.m. the Joseph F. Smith Building, kept going for five hours, and every one of the students I heard impressed me deeply.

A little while before the event started, I was walking in the Student Center.

A knot of students were setting up a large room, laying out some large contraptions, for yet another large production.

A young man, standing at some distance, suddenly shouted at me in a very determined voice: 

“Hey!”

He then pointed at a young woman—one of those shining BYU students—and yelled:

“Never listen to HER!”

 

“Well, I never have,” I replied. 

 I then added, “But I am planning to listen to her in the future.”

Within a couple of hours I found myself--a guest on campus--moderating a student panel for music and art, the speakers being four poised young women, all clear of voice, articulate, plus languages, international experience, and science galore. They created paintings, sculptures, whatever it took, to illustrate their themes. None of them struck me as arrogant.

It’s clear that the future of this Kingdom will have everything to do with whether we (all of us) listen to the women of the Church. God gave some apostles, some prophets, some pastors, it is true—but above and beyond all else He gave His KIngdom not only the Three Zinas but numberless exemplary women. We should all plan on listening.