The 2024 Utah Area Young Single Adult Conference convention brought thousands of people to Salt Lake City for speakers, classes, service projects, social activities and more.
I navigated the crowds during the weekend of Aug. 2, attending the conference both as a young single adult and as a Church News reporter. But as I listened to speakers and interviewed my peers, I couldn’t help but think that the label “young single adult” isn’t our most important identifier. Rather, like any Church member striving to walk the covenant path, our identities are rooted in our relationship with Jesus Christ.
That’s not to say that the label “young single adult” is unimportant or insignificant. In interviews, multiple young single adults said how much they enjoyed interacting with those in similar life situations, who cherish the same beliefs while working through challenges distinct to our age group.
But as President Russell M. Nelson taught during a young adult devotional in May 2022, designations, labels and identifiers can be of unequal value and change over time. And if any label replaces the most important identifiers, the results can be spiritually suffocating, he said.
President Nelson then outlined those most important identifiers. First and foremost, he said, each young adult is a child of God. Second, as a member of the Church, they are a child of the covenant. And third, they are a disciple of Jesus Christ.
“Tonight, I plead with you not to replace these three paramount and unchanging identifiers with any others, because doing so could stymie your progress or pigeonhole you in a stereotype that could potentially thwart your eternal progression,” he said.
As young single adults, it can become far too easy to focus on the “single” part of that designation. It’s also sometimes tempting to anchor our identities in jobs, friendships, hobbies or any of the other good things we fill our lives with.
That’s why President Nelson’s counsel remains timely and relevant — and why the 2024 Utah YSA conference, designed to help young single adults draw closer to the Savior, was so valuable.
For instance, in her keynote address about spiritual road trips, Young Women General President Emily Belle Freeman shared how the roads to Damascus, Jericho, Calvary and Emmaus parallel gospel truths.
“If you are in the middle of a long or difficult journey,” she said, “if you are tired and in need of rest, if you just want to laugh a little and cry a little, if you are yearning for something more, if you are in deep trouble and looking for courage, or if your heart is weary and you are looking for strength to go on, here is one thing that I know: You do not journey alone. Jesus Christ promised to walk with you, to make sure you lack nothing.”
And in the conference’s closing devotional on Aug. 4, Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles testified that young adults can embrace their eternal potential and purpose by focusing on the Lord Jesus Christ.
No matter what young adults face, “Jesus Christ and His teachings are the answer. Jesus Christ is your strength,” Elder Uchtdorf said.
