Brigham Young University Education Week classes are curated for a variety of audiences, from parents to seniors to general learners.
This year, those audiences included young single adults and the people who love them.
Bruce Chang, a director for Seminaries and Institutes of Religion, taught “Rescuing Our Young Single Adults in the Latter Days” between Tuesday, Aug. 20 and Friday, Aug. 23. Topics included helping returned missionaries adjust to coming home, teaching young single adults to navigate critical decisions and strengthening young single adults through mental health challenges.
Additionally, on the same days, Seminaries and Institutes of Religion instructor Stephen K. Hunsaker taught “YSA Survival 101: Navigating the Dating World.” Besides offering practical advice, his classes underscored the importance of involving the Savior in every phase and challenge of life.
Here are some highlights from the young single adult classes.
Helping returned missionaries adjust to coming home
In his experience as an institute teacher, Chang said he’s noticed that every returned missionary needs a purpose, but that purpose can vary from person to person.
It might be helpful for returned missionaries to consider that their formal missionary service is over, Chang said, but now Heavenly Father has new missions for them — as temple recommend holders, scripture readers and more.
While purpose is necessary, however, over-scheduling can be detrimental, Chang continued.
“We need to pray, we need to ponder,” he said. “We need to allow our young single adults and our returning missionaries and ourselves, at times, to rejuvenate. ... Busyness does not equal righteousness.”
Additionally, when talking to young adults about their missions, Chang encouraged people to avoid “performance mindset” questions like “How many people did you baptize?” Instead, try questions like, “What was the best day of your mission?” or “What’s a Christlike attribute you noticed about each of your companions?”
Ultimately, “the best people to rescue young single adults are young single adults,” Chang said, continuing that when they reach out to each other — to attend institute, worship in the temple or serve together — they’re far more likely to retain strong testimonies.
Helping young single adults navigate life decisions
Chang also taught a class on helping young single adults make important life decisions. No matter the question, he said, “teach [young single adults] to connect with Jesus Christ.”
Secondly, he continued, teach them to turn to the prophets as they navigate critical life decisions.
Finally, be involved in young single adults’ lives, Chang said — even little moments of connection can make a difference.
Chang also emphasized the importance of help from deceased loved ones.
“We worry so much about our children ... we neglect the fact that there are people on the other side of the veil that will come [to help them],” he said.
Change through Jesus Christ
During his classes on navigating dating, Hunsaker spoke about being changed through Jesus Christ.
He said a person’s beliefs — about God, themselves, dating and anything else — are rooted in their experiences. Unfortunately, this means that negative experiences can lead to unhealthy beliefs, such as a child whose father abandons his family believing that fathers only ever cause pain. Unhealthy beliefs can then lead to unhealthy behavior — like that same child, as they grow up, deciding they don’t want to be a parent themselves at all.
To change unhealthy beliefs, Hunsaker said, a person has to identify the experiences that led to the unhealthy beliefs, then work to change their beliefs.
However, “the being that has to change those [beliefs], to make them permanent, needs to be Jesus Christ, because a mortal being cannot make something permanent,” Hunsaker said.
In his time as a seminary teacher, he continued, he’s seen a lot of broken hearts and spiritual “captives.” But he’s also seen the Savior take those same young adults “and free them and ... give them hope and courage, and unbind them from the things that are causing them [their] struggles and pains.”
About BYU Education Week
Since 1922, BYU has hosted an annual event offering presentations and classes to strengthen an individual’s testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and contribute to the “balanced development of the total person” (from BYU’s mission statement).
Now known as Education Week, the five-day program kicked off Monday, Aug. 19 and concludes Friday, Aug. 23. It features hundreds of presenters teaching more than 1,000 classes. Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles gave the devotional keynote address on Tuesday, with other classes offered by the Primary, Relief Society, Young Women and Young Men general presidencies.
The theme for this year is found in Romans 12:2: “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” The welcome note from Education Week administrators printed in this year’s schedule states, “Through the classes at Education Week, we encourage you to strengthen your testimony of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, to feel of Their grace, and to develop your various gifts and strive to be an influence on others.”
