What Is It Like Being A Ysa In The Lds Church And Community?

[halconero]

Just keep that tongue in while you are kissing    Unless of course the strength of the youth pamphlet is not applicable to the young single adult.  I have never seen a YSA pamphlet, so I guess you are in the clear.   So, never mind...Have fun!

 

It's more of a guide.

Edited February 28, 2014 by halconero

[VideoGameJunkie]

I'm not a YSA by choice. I wish I was married, but I know things will happen in the Lord's time.

[silvermoon383]

What it's like to be a YSA really depends on where you live from what I've found.  My first two YSA branches were nice (lots of friends with a lot going on, though of course the activities ran the full spectrum of the quality scale), but after college.......lets just say everyone around me got a huge downer when I stopped dating (for the most part.)  They keep suggesting different YSA girls to me but I keep reminding them they're all just over 18 while I'm about to age out.

 

And don't get me started on how the stake here won't form a branch.

[halconero]

What it's like to be a YSA really depends on where you live from what I've found. My first two YSA branches were nice (lots of friends with a lot going on, though of course the activities ran the full spectrum of the quality scale), but after college.......lets just say everyone around me got a huge downer when I stopped dating (for the most part.) They keep suggesting different YSA girls to me but I keep reminding them they're all just over 18 while I'm about to age out.

And don't get me started on how the stake here won't form a branch.

Yeah, the Toronto stake didn't want to form a YSA branch for the longest time, despite 150 active YSA scattered around the stake. They said it would cripple the family wards to take them out. If you wanted to go to a YSA ward you had to travel an hour and a half.

Finally they changed presidencies and the Seventy who came strongly suggested that they make a branch.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

[cinepro]

I posted this in another thread, but I just watched this documentary about an annual Mormon singles weekend at Duck Beach in North Carolina.  It's really good:

 

[Scott Lloyd]

I love the apocryphal story of how Hugh Nibley found his wife. He had been ' encouraged' by some of the church brethren to get married so he told them he would at that moment leave his office and propose to the first women he saw. He was serious , but I'm reasonably sure there was more to the story.

 

 

 

My recollection from the days when I was single is that some dispensers of "advice" apparently thought it was that easy -- or nearly so.

Edited March 8, 2014 by Scott Lloyd

[The Nehor]

My recollection from the days is that some dispensers of "advice" apparently thought it was that easy -- or nearly so.

It was that easy. Slip them a Mickey and marry them before they sober up. Ahhhhhh.......the good old days.

[Five Solas]

Looking back, I was really immature as a "YSA."  The things I liked about it aren't things I'm pleased to admit now.  Mostly I put on a show.  I enjoyed a solid career, disposable cash, dressed well, read well, owned cars that I kept immaculate.  Was a road warrior for my employer and only back in town ~ every-other weekend during much of my singles ward career, which gave me something of a mystique.  Leadership invited me to DJ stake & regional YSA dances.  I'd buy import copies of the UK’s "Now That's What I Call Music" series so I could break new material before anyone else had heard of it (this was before downloading music via the internet became widespread).  It was a lot of fun--I loved impressing people with my stuff and the things I could do, cool music, expensive restaurants.  But I was a "NOM" before it was hip (or even heard of) hadn't served a mission, didn't have a conventional LDS testimony, couldn't get a temple recommend--which meant that the women I really wanted to pursue weren't interested in anything more than a first date with me.  So I spent a lot of money without having much to show.  And as I got older and began to want to settle down and have a family of my own--the tension grew.

 

Eventually I "graduated" to the “SA” program.  Never felt such discouragement, honestly it was the low point of my whole life.  You go from vibrant singles wards aligned with a major West Coast university surrounded by enormous talent, energy & potential--to a group of middle-aged men and women who’ve missed everyone's expectations, including their own.  A number of the guys couldn't hold steady jobs.  The women were the ones who'd been passed over in the previous program, their “biological clocks” winding down.  It came as a huge shock to be lumped together with people I otherwise would have ignored and considered beneath me.  Again, I'm not proud of this looking back.  (And I realize my experience, vivid as it is for me—won’t match everyone’s.)

 

By God’s Grace that wasn’t the end of my story.

 

--Erik

 

PS.  And my 3 & 5 year old girls now quite enjoy dancing to those old N-T-W-I-C-M CDs on occasion when I break them out—an image I never saw coming…

:0)