Latter-day Saint young adults define their biggest challenges, biggest hope

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Latter-day Saint young adults face loneliness and decision-making challenges, finding hope in Christ.
• The Utah Area YSA Conference emphasizes connection, providing a supportive environment for attendees.
• Speakers highlight faith's role in overcoming challenges, with events fostering worship and community.

SALT LAKE CITY — The largest annual gathering for Latter-day Saint young single adults in Utah concluded Saturday with a clear emphasis on connection and growing together in Christ.

That emphasis has been the very theme of the Utah Area YSA Conference each of the four years it has been held and organized by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The theme "Together in Christ" connects directly with the church's Utah Area vision, Elder Brian K. Taylor, president of the Utah Area, told young adults Saturday. The vision is "joyfully gathering Israel one by one in Christ."

The Church of Jesus Christ "is the kingdom of God on this earth, and you — you our dear friends — will take this kingdom forward," he said. "We're in your hands, (and) as you lead now and into the future, we want you to know that the Lord has confidence in you."

Reflecting on their experiences, several Latter-day Saint young adults defined some of the biggest challenges they and their peers are facing today.

They also defined their biggest hope and how the annual conference is strengthening them to meet their challenges. Here's what they said.

Jesus Christ is the 'ultimate source of hope'

Joe Clark, a Latter-day Saint young adult from Salt Lake City, told the Deseret News that one of the biggest challenges he's seen and experienced is loneliness.

It's "not that there's no people around, but maybe that you feel alone in your stage of life," Clark said. Where Clark has found hope, however, is in Jesus Christ and his gospel promises.

Jesus Christ is the "ultimate source of hope," he said. He "knows exactly what you're going through … (so) you're never really alone."

Natalie Fronk, another Latter-day Saint young adult from Logan, similarly recognized that "finding connection" is a challenge she and many other young adults face. She spoke of Christ and opportunities to gather in worship as sources of hope.

"I feel like miracles really can happen when people put so much work and prayer into providing a place where we can come and worship Jesus Christ together," she said, using the young adult conference as an example. "It just kind of sets things up for miracles."

Latter-day Saint young adult Maggie McMillan from Colorado said making decisions is another challenge many young adults face.

"The biggest decisions of our lives are at this time," she said. It's easy to look forward to the end goal and strive to trust God's "grand plan," but "sometimes it's hard to have faith in the little plan."

The Utah Area YSA Conference gives Latter-day Saint young single adults a place to worship Christ and connect with others who relate to their challenges and share their faith.

"There are so many other things that we could turn to these days," Latter-day Saint young adult Christian Moody said. "But Jesus Christ is the only one who has the answer and can actually change us and can actually help us with the problems that we are facing."

The conference's classes, speakers and activities offer young adults the chance to connect with people from all over the state and even outside of Utah, Moody said. "I don't think there's a bigger gathering of YSA in the world than what's going on right here, right now."

The conference's second day has included messages from the Utah Area presidency and Sister Kristin M. Yee of the church's Relief Society general presidency.

The conference will continue through Saturday night with evening activities, including country swing and Latin dancing, and a concert featuring "American Idol" winner Iam Tongi.

See complete summaries of the Utah Area leaders' and Sister Yee's keynote addresses on TheChurchNews.com.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsReligionUtahFamily
Amy Ortiz