A Good, Spiritual Discussion Between good Men & Women

The first section is for those less familiar with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The main story starts after the three asterisks.

For those of you who are less familiar with the services held by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it is broken down into three one-hour blocks each Sunday:

• one for a general sacrament meeting (partaking of the Lord's Supper, sermons by church members), 
• one for "Sunday School" which can involve a selection of specialized religion classes (gospel topics, doctrine from a specific book of scripture, preparing to enter the temple, etc.), 
• and one in which the women attend their own class and the men attend their own class (children and teenagers have their own classes as well). This last hour is known as Relief Society meetings for the women and priesthood meetings for the men.

Every so often, the bishop (leader of the ward) will hold a general class this third hour, or even invite a few members of one gender to teach a class for the other gender. This can be seen especially in congregations made up of young, college-age adults.

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Today, in church, the bishop arranged for a few of the ladies to come to priesthood meeting to lead a discussion about the principles of the law of chastity (basically: no sexual relations before marriage, and complete fidelity to one's spouse after marriage, although the discussion included pornography and, finally, repentance). I had never seen this happen before, and I wondered how this lesson would go.

What I'm grateful for is how edifying that lesson was. I was surprised, and more importantly, I felt the influence of the Holy Ghost during what became an insightful discussion about God's plan of happiness for His children, how the gift of procreation advances that plan, and its role in the eternal progression of God's children. The class was more of an open discussion that remained on a higher, more respectful plane than the awkward or base ways most outside influences approach the topic.

I am grateful that a good, spiritual discussion between good men and women about the law of chastity turned out to be very positive and edifying.