Sometimes it’s fun to read those stories and wonder how we’d react in the same situation. Would we stay true to what we believe even when our lives were threatened? Would we continue to live the way God has taught us to live no matter how much pressure there was to stop living that way? Would we be cheerful in the face of adversity?

We may not be asked to walk across country or flee our home while murderers chase after us. Some of us won’t face open prejudice and hatred. And yet, there will always be people who think our standards are old-fashioned and stupid, and who will pressure us to give them up. The pressure might be less noticeable, less violent, but it is there. In many ways, it’s harder to fight the less fierce forms of prejudice and pressure than it is a mob with guns. It’s sometimes said that it’s not nearly as hard to die for our religion as it is to live for it.

What does that mean? It means that if someone says, “Deny your religion or I’ll kill you,” you are likely to find that moment of courage to say, “I won’t deny it.” You’ll die, but it only takes a moment of courage and then you’re with God. However, when someone pressures you day after day to smoke or drink or dress immodestly, when people all around you are swearing or cheating or gossiping, when everyone but you gets to go play on Sunday…that can be hard. The little day to day pressures can wear you down faster than a gun pointed at you for a few minutes.

Today’s pioneer is asked to blaze a new trail, not a physical one leading west, but a trail of faith and morality. There used to be one, but it’s become overgrown with weeds and brush and so-called civilization. It’s up to those of us who still care what God teaches to clear that path, get on it, and stay on it. We can set an example that will encourage our friends to join us. If enough people do that, there can be more people on the trail than off it.

There is a story in the book of Mormon about a man named Lehi. He saw a vision in which there was a beautiful tree that represented God’s love. Anyone who made his way to the tree and ate the fruit that grew on it would enjoy more happiness than anyone could imagine. There was a path and many people got on it. However, a deep fog came up and many got lost, wandering off the path. There was an iron rod, representing God’s word, that the walkers could grab onto. If they held on they couldn’t get lost. Not everyone did, but those who did got to the tree and ate the fruit.

But then something interesting happened. There was a large and fancy building on a hill nearby. At the windows of the building were people in fancy clothes and elegant hairstyles. They stood there making fun of all the people who ate the fruit. Some people wisely ignored them, but others got embarrassed at being made fun of. They rushed off the path and ran to the building to join the people in it. They became mockers, too, wanting to be part of the rich “popular” crowd more than they wanted to be part of God’s inner-circle. They were willing to give up all the eternal blessings of Heaven to get a few years of popularity.

How about you? If you were on that path, would you give in to the mocking or would you stay on that path and do what you knew was right? Would you settle for a lifetime of pretend happiness or hold out for an eternity of real joy, even if it meant being made fun of today? Are you willing to be lonely if necessary for a while, remembering that someday you’ll never be lonely again? Are you willing to put up with the teasing or a less popular crowd if that’s required? Most importantly, are you willing to hang on to a good attitude even when your trials aren’t your fault?

All those things can set an example for others. You’ll be the one leading the way and you may be surprised to discover others find themselves anxious to join you when they see how happy and fulfilled you are on your special path. You never know who is watching, so be brave and be a pioneer.

The Martin Handcart company had more problems than many of the companies. They were so desperate to reach Salt Lake set out too late in the year and storms came early. They had been advised to wait, but they were anxious to get started in a safe new home. They ended up traveling in the cold of winter, when it was hard to find food or to stay warm.

In October 1856, Brigham Young learned they were in deep trouble. The semi-annual conference was about to begin, so during the conference, he asked for volunteers to form a rescue party. The rescuers found them, bringing food and help. However, by the time they reached the Sweetwater River, the people in the Martin Handcart Company were very weak from having been hungry and cold for so long. The very deep, wide, and icy cold river was more than they could handle and they were afraid their journey would end right there, because they weren’t strong enough to cross it. Three teenage boys from the rescue party, George W. Grant, David P. Kimball, and C. Allen Huntington, took matters into their own hands and decided to carry people across. Those three boys carried almost every member of the handcart company themselves. However, this came with a price, as heroism often does. They became quite ill themselves from the strain and the challenges of spending so much time in icy water with heavy loads. Eventually—years after their heroic actions—they all died from complications of that day of heroism. Brigham Young was moved by their sacrifice and cried when he learned what they’d done.

Mary Goble was a teenager in the Cluff Wagon Company, which was to follow the Martin Handcart company in order to help them as needed. Because they had wagons and not handcarts, they had better supplies and more options open to them. Her heroism came in the form of helping her mother. Her mother became very sick during the journey and the company was traveling in an area with no water. They’d been able to melt snow sometimes to have something to drink, but Mary’s mother longed for water from the freshwater spring a few miles away. Mary set out to get it for her, traveling with a woman from the company. As they were walking, they found a very sick man. He was old and unable to move. They knew he would die of frostbite soon if they didn’t get help. Mary continued on to get the water and the other women went back to the camp to get help for the man.

Mary was naturally frightened to find herself all alone in the woods. The travelers were afraid of the native people and Mary was so busy watching for them she lost track of where she was. Soon she realized she was completely lost in the wilderness. The snow was all the way up to her knees and it was almost midnight before search teams found her. They tried to treat her frostbite.

Mary’s mother died just as they entered the Valley and they carried her body in the wagon the rest of the way. Already, three of Mary’s younger siblings had died during the five month journey. When they arrived that evening, they were quickly given shelter and food. Brigham Young himself came to greet them the next morning. Tears filled his eyes when he saw Mary’s frozen feet and learned her mother was dead. A doctor was sent for who had to amputate her toes because they were unable to be saved from the frostbite. Naturally, this was traumatic for her, but Brigham Young made a prophetic promise to her the rest of her feet and her legs would heal. It didn’t seem at first like this was going to be true. She continued to get worse and the doctor told her he needed to amputate her feet. She refused, remembering Brigham’s promise and having faith in him. The doctor was amazed, a few months later, that she was completely healed.

Sometimes a hero is just someone who keeps on going, doing what needs to be done even when their hearts are breaking and their bodies are weak. This was the case with Maggie, age thirteen, and Ellen, age nine, who left their home in England to come to be with the Mormons, whose religion they had just joined. The Pucell family immigrated to the United States on the same ship that brought Mary Goble.

They found, when they arrived, their wagons and handcarts weren’t ready and it was July before they could begin their journey. They traveled to Winter Quarters in Missouri and then set out for Salt Lake. They had to cross the Platte River several times, and the last time there were chunks of ice floating in the water. Some were too weak to even attempt to cross a deep icy river and sat down, where they died. Others, including the Pucells, braved the water. However, the girls’ mother became very ill from doing this and had to be placed in the wagon. Their father, although weak and thin from lack of food, tried to pull the wagon up the steep hills himself, with the girls pushing the back of the wagon.

When it came time to cross another stream, again icy, the father fell. He managed to get back up but died on the other side of the stream. Now there were only the girls to care for their mother and manage the journey. Their mother soon died also and the girls were orphaned. Despite their broken hearts and the fear they must have felt, they kept right on going, managing as best they could with whatever help was available, until rescuers came. Then they continued on, still struggling in the icy cold, although at least with a little food and warmer clothing to help them. Everyone had been hungry for so long they were dangerously thin and weak.

The girls had frozen arms and legs. Ellen had to have her legs amputated at the knees—and because the Saints were newly arrived, they didn’t have proper tools or even anesthesia. Can you imagine having your knees amputated while you’re still awake and without pain killers? This didn’t stop Ellen, though. She went on to marry and have a large family. She spent her life in pain, because her legs never healed properly, but was never heard to complain. Without the wheelchair she might have had in modern times, she learned to get around on her stumps and to devote her life to helping others.

Life can be hard. A lot of times, our trials are not our own fault, but we still have a responsibility to follow the examples of these teenagers and make something of our lives. We can learn to endure our trials and to find our proper place in whatever life we’re given.

July 24 is Pioneer Day. For Mormon teenagers, this is a day of fireworks and parades, but it’s also a day to remember the Mormon pioneers. Can you imagine spending your teen years walking across the country, helping to pull a handcart because you can’t afford a covered wagon, maybe watching your friends, siblings, or even your parents die along the way? That’s how it was for a lot of teenagers. There were dances, but they were held after a really long day of walking. They had friends, but they talked as they worked or walked. These teens had to be adults long before a modern teenager might have to, just because they had so much responsibility and they’d already had hard lives. Many had lost parents or watched their homes destroyed. Some had even been attacked and every day they faced serious dangers from people who had forgotten our country believes in religious freedom. That kind of life makes you grow up fast.

The teenagers in the early church had interesting lives and many of them recorded their experiences in journals or later wrote their life stories. One boy, Henry Sanderson, became a Mormon when he was thirteen. He lived in Connecticut and when his parents converted, he had to endure a lot of teasing and bullying from people who didn’t like Mormons. He was relieved when his parents decided to move to Nauvoo to live with the Mormons, so he could escape the persecution. There, he became friends with the sons of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, who lived two houses from him. Every tenth day, Henry helped to build the church’s temple, a special building used for sacred ordinances.

Joseph Smith was murdered when Henry was fifteen. He had watched as Joseph was arrested and taken to prison on false charges, which allowed him to be killed without protection from his own people. For a while, people weren’t sure what would happen to the church. The murderers hoped the church would die with Joseph, but it didn’t. Brigham Young took over and life went on, but not exactly as before. Things became very hard for the Saints, as the Mormons called themselves, and Henry’s family needed income. He and his father went to St. Louis to find work and Henry was hired to work for shoemakers. At fifteen, he worked full-time.

In 1845, the family moved to a farm, where his father was hired to work. However, an illness, probably malaria, struck and Henry’s father died. In those days, that meant the oldest son, Henry, was now responsible for making sure the family survived. However, Henry himself was also ill with the same disease. Despite this, the family returned to Nauvoo, the city where the Mormons lived. One sister stayed behind to work for a bit, so Henry, still sick, returned to bring her back when her job ended. He worked for his passage as an assistant fireman one way and a cook and dishwasher the other way.

At age seventeen, Henry joined the Nauvoo Legion. The Saints were in a lot of danger. Joseph Smith’s murder hadn’t ended their persecution and the Saints knew they could all be killed at any time. He had a gun and helped patrol the city, watching for enemy mobs.

When the Saints finally decided they were going to have to leave Nauvoo, Henry and his family joined them on the trek west. Henry worked for another family to help pay the costs. However, the United States government stopped the travelers and asked for volunteer soldiers to help fight the Mexican War. Henry was sure Brigham Young would refuse, because the government had refused to protect the Saints in their time of danger. To his surprise, Brigham Young agreed and Henry became a soldier. When his time ended, he entered the Salt Lake Valley, but he wanted to be with his family, so he traveled with Brigham Young’s company to Winter Quarters, where many of the pioneers were preparing for the journey. He returned to Utah in three years.

Henry’s life was unusual compared to teens today. By the time he was an adult, he had lost his father, been a soldier, led a family, worked full-time, and become a pioneer. His teen years weren’t filled with the fun of a typical teenager, but he never complained about it. He was proud of what he had accomplished at such a young age.

This story is retold from William G. Hartley, “Nauvoo Teenager: Henry Sanderson,” New Era, Oct 1989, 44. Read the story to learn more about his teenage years.

In this month’s New Era (a magazine for Mormon teens) a writer tells how she got roped into helping at the Bishop’s Storehouse, which is a food bank for Mormon church members. It’s a little different from most food banks, in that the person needing help first meets with her bishop (pastor) to determine what type of help is needed. They then are given a list of the items available and mark what they need, which is approved or adjusted by the bishop. They go into a building that looks like a grocery store, but with just a checkout counter instead of a cash register and get their order with help from volunteers.

At first Sarah resented having to do this service because it cut into her free time. After a while though, she realized she felt great knowing she was helping others and making a difference, and she began to work even harder at it. (See What’s in Store at the Storehouse?”)

There are a lot of volunteer jobs available for teenagers. The first step is to identify what you really care about or are passionate about. If you worry about people being hungry, you might want to work at a food bank. If the environment is your specialty, volunteer with an environmental group or just go out and pick up trash somewhere, maybe getting your friends to help out and ending with a picnic. Do you plan to be a teacher someday? Maybe a group is looking for tutors to help out in a summer program. Can’t live without a computer? Teach a class on computers at a senior center. No matter what social issues you care about, you’re likely to find some way to turn it into a volunteer job.

While you don’t get a paycheck in the form of cash, the paycheck you do get is worth more and lasts longer. Volunteering makes you feel like you’re helping to create the world you’re going to be living or running someday. The more problems we fix while you’re young, the better your world will be when you’re an adult.

You’ll never really know how many people you help. If you tutor one child, you might feel like you only helped one person. However, if that child grows up and goes to college because you taught him to read and to love reading, you’ve then helped his spouse and children, too. They’ll probably go to college because their dad did, and your influence can go on forever, because you may well have rescued hundreds of generations from a lifetime of poverty. Pretty amazing results for a few hours of tutoring!

Volunteering can also help you find out what you want to do for a career and give you job experience to put on your first resume. A lot of the volunteer work I’ve done helped me decide what I wanted to do with my life—sometimes I loved it and sometimes I hated it, but I learned what I’m willing to spend my life doing. Colleges like seeing volunteer work on your application.

Really, though, even though volunteer work can benefit you, the best reason for doing it is because it’s a great feeling to know you’re making a difference and not just sitting around complaining about what’s wrong with the world. Don’t complain—get up and go do something.

Just because everyone's doing it doesn't mean they're right.

Great stories, but of course, that’s not how it worked in real life. When I was a freshman in high school, I found myself unexpectedly getting attention from a group of popular kids. I don’t know how I came to their attention since popular had never been part of my life. Actually, I’d never really had any desire to be popular. I’d always been happy with the friends I had, but somehow, when they started paying attention to me and to my friend, we both were so flattered we forgot popularity had never been very important to us.

At first, everything seemed great. However, my friend David pulled me aside and warned me the kids in that group were dangerous. He said they didn’t have values and they liked to pull good kids into their group and try to corrupt them. I shrugged off his warning, figuring he was jealous of the time I spent with the new friends I had.

Then one day at a party for my drama class, they invited me to go for a walk with them, saying it was too hot inside. I guess I was pretty inexperienced, because I actually thought they were going for a walk. I loved nighttime walks. Instead, of course, they pulled out cigarettes. I had watched my grandmother suffer from emphysema for several years, the result of a lifetime of smoking, so I was not even tempted to smoke. I refused their offer and instead of accepting it, as always happens in stories, they started making fun of me. Even worse, my friend took one, looking a little embarrassed as she did so. I wanted to yank it out of her mouth, knowing what she was doing to herself, but I didn’t. I didn’t really know what to do. I was hurt that my “friends” would make fun of me for doing what I was knew was right and I was angry that they’d gotten my friend to give in so she could fit in, but I also lacked the courage to just go into the house alone. I wouldn’t give in, knowing what I knew, but I stayed with them. Finally one of the girls told the others to leave me alone.

The worst was yet to come, though. When we went back inside, a boy I really admired walked over to me and said, “I know they do all kinds of things they aren’t supposed to, but I thought you were different.” I realized, as he walked away,  he thought I had smoked because I was with them. I realized everyone knew why they’d gone outside and by going with them—and by returning with them—I sent a false message that I was just like them.

That weekend, I paid more attention to David’s warning. I learned they did a lot of things I hadn’t known they did. I was shy, though, and not very brave, so I didn’t know what to do. On Monday, not wanting to see them in drama class or at lunch, I came to school early and went to talk to my guidance counselor. She suggested we rearrange my schedule so I had no classes with them and so my lunch would be at a different time. That took away any temptation to continue to bask in the prestige of their popularity and made it easier for me to break off the ties—we just never really saw each other any more.

When I walked into the cafeteria that day, I saw David. He motioned me over and I joined the friends I had abandoned. I was lucky they wanted me back. Popularity didn’t seem so appealing anymore as I found myself thinking about the trouble I could have gotten myself into and the damage I’d done to my reputation just by hanging out with the wrong crowd. I didn’t do anything wrong, but no one else knew that.

That story had a happy ending for me, but it didn’t for my friend, who stayed with the group and adopted their values. She had a hard life ahead once she abandoned her standards and her dreams for life to focus on being accepted and popular. I tried to help, but there was nothing I could do. A person has to take the first step alone before others can step in to help.

As an adult now, I can’t remember why it seemed so important to be in that group. I had nothing in common with those people and they didn’t care about me. If they’d cared about me as a person, they would have respected my standards. I was so much happier with friends who shared my values and who respected me if I chose a higher value once in a while. More importantly, their high standards encouraged me to live a better life. We had fun, but we always had an eye on a bright and glorious future. We knew high school wasn’t all there was to life.

Read advice to a Scandinavian girl who wanted to move in with her boyfriend.

What did Jesus ask us to do?

When Jesus was living on the Earth, he often worried about the people who were hungry, including those who had come to hear him preach for several days. He had fasted for a very long time at the start of His ministry, so He understood hunger. However, He had never experienced sin, and yet He was as kind to the sinner and as able to know just what they needed as he was to those who were hungry. This is because Jesus, being perfect, had empathy.

Teens who are empathetic look at others differently than those who are not. A teen who isn’t empathetic might look at a friend whose family is poor and think, “Wow, they must have made really bad choices, or maybe they’re just lazy. They probably deserve to be poor, and helping them will just encourage them to stay lazy.” An empathetic teenager might thing, “It must be really scary for Jim right now. I wonder what I could do to help. Maybe I can find a way to get him to take a few things of mine I don’t need without making him feel like it’s charity. And I could ask my dad if he needs anyone else to help out at his work. Jim might want an afterschool job.”

Jesus told us that we were not to make final judgments about people. That is God’s job. We can never really know what happens in a person’s life to cause the challenges they’re facing, and we also don’t know what will happen to us in the future. No one is guaranteed to be safe from trials.

Just because studies show teens are less empathetic today doesn’t mean we have an excuse to be that way ourselves. Jesus taught us to love one another and to serve one another, regardless of what other teens are choosing.

How can you become more empathetic? The experts are saying one solution is to spend more time in the actual presence of people—not online or on the phone, but in person, talking and getting to know them. Another way is to avoid media that desensitizes you to pain and suffering.

When you see someone who has a hard life, ask yourself how you would feel in that situation and how you would want to be treated. Try to picture Jesus Christ watching the person and then imagine what He would do. Once you know what Jesus would do, and what He would want you to do, you’ll know what to do yourself. Remember, you could find yourself in the same situation or one equally painful yourself someday. What would you want others to do for you then?

Peter Vidmar, a Mormon, likes to quote a former leader of his church, Spencer W. Kimball. President Kimball’s motto was “Do it.” Peter Vidmar says if you want your dreams to come true, you can’t just dream about them—you have to get to work and make them come true.

He explains that the margin of victory is often very, very small:

“Let’s realize what the margin of victory was in a few of the events in last summer’s Olympics. In women’s cycling, after the 79.2-kilometer race, the difference between the gold medalist and the silver medalist at the finish line was just the length of a tire. In a pressure-packed swimming relay, the difference between the first-place team and second-place team was only .04 of a second. In many of the gymnastics competitions, the difference between first place and second place was as minute as .025 of a point.

The champions didn’t win by running twice as fast, by jumping twice as far, or by scoring twice as many points as their opponents. In many cases they won by just a fraction of a second, a fraction of an inch, or a fraction of a point. Likewise, and more important, the champions didn’t win by training twice as hard as their opponents. If another gymnast trains six hours a day, I can’t train twelve hours a day. Twelve hours a day in a gym just isn’t healthy! But I can train six hours and fifteen minutes a day. This is where giving it that little extra and going the extra mile makes the difference.” (Peter Vidmar, “Pursuing Excellence,” Ensign, May 1985, 38.)

He advises people to work at everything they do just a little longer—even just fifteen minutes a day more will add up to more than 91 hours a year of extra training and can make the difference between success and failure.

Next, he reminds listeners to not give up. Success isn’t always smooth or consistent. There will be days when nothing seems to be going well, or when we get discouraged, but if we give up, we can’t possibly succeed. Instead, just keep working away at it, little by little.

He teaches that intermediate goals are important, but equally important is to set a really high top goal. He aimed for the Olympics even when he hadn’t started winning local competitions, because it made him work that much harder—not hard enough to win the next local competition, but hard enough to win the Olympics. This meant he worked harder than the others, who were only focused on the next contest.

Finally, he encourages his listeners to hold on to their moral standards. He tells a story of being handed a large cup filled with wine. Each winner was supposed to drink from the cup and pass it on. He explained he wouldn’t do it—not even just a sip—because he was Mormon. They insisted he take the cup when it was passed to him, so he did, but he only held it high and then passed it on. The audience laughed at him for refusing to drink, but, even though he was a little embarrassed, he was also proud to realize how easy it had been for him to not give in to pressure to lower his standards.

Read Peter Vidmar’s complete article on Pursuing Excellence.

The Browns are Mormon and the press has noted that they are a close family and very clean-cut. Being clean-cut and moral has not hurt their reputations at all, with their concerts regularly sold out and their albums topping the chart. They have a popular Facebook fan page.

They are even more unusual in that they all play the piano. The parents admit they would have taught them all different instruments had they been planning ahead, but at the time, they just wanted their children to appreciate music. Before they were even out of grade school, they were accompanying the church choirs. Their practices became so intense the parents worried because their children were too busy with school, music, and church. They had no time just to have fun and be kids, so the parents switched to homeschooling, which is more efficient because you don’t have to wait for the other students to catch up to you or do the small things that take up a lot of school time. With this new plan, the children had all afternoon to play, while still getting all their school work done and their music practice in.

After the two oldest girls started attending Julliard, a prestigious music school in New York, they wanted their siblings to join them. Since their siblings were still in high school, the parents moved to New York also, rather than assigning their children to a guardian, as did most kids. They were a family that wanted to be together. Eventually, the parents were forced to return to Utah, due to New York’s high cost of living and the cost of having five children at an expensive school. By then, most of the children were adults, and the youngest son commuted back and forth by plane each weekend, living under the care of his siblings while in New York.

It was having five siblings at Julliard that that started their path to fame. The media heard about this unusual piano playing family and started doing stories about them. It started with the BBC and went on to Oprah and other popular television programs, until almost everyone had heard of them. The youngest son was offered a chance to be in a boy-band, but his father turned down the offer. Most offers they received were for pop music, but they are classical musicians and weren’t interested in turning into a rock band.

Eventually, they performed for a large group of record label executives, playing the classical music they loved in the youthful fun way they had perfected and everyone wanted to sign them. They chose a label and the tours and albums began.

It’s still a family business. The parents now work for their children, helping them with various aspects of their career.

You’d think, spending so much time together, they’d be constantly fighting, but they aren’t. They love being together and being a family. Mormons are taught that families aren’t just something you have while you’re on earth. They’re also going to be part of your lives forever, so Mormons tend to work pretty hard at getting along with their families and becoming close friends. The Browns are a real example of how you can be siblings and friends at the same time!

Chelsea Hightower, a popular Mormon dancer who was a finalist on a television program called “So You Think You Can Dance” was about to go onstage for a solo when she realized she didn’t have a dress for the number. She approached the wardrobe department, and they offered her an immodest dress that didn’t even cover her stomach, which is a violation of Mormon dress standards. She was unwilling to wear it, so she began approaching other wardrobe people, checking the dresses she had brought with her, and looking frantically for an appropriate outfit. The time approached when she should have been warming up and steeling her nerves for the solo. Solos always made her nervous, and the panic over finding an appropriate outfit only made her nervousness worse. Only moments before going onstage, she found something to wear.

She was concerned about the impact of not warming up and of going onstage already frazzled, but she felt a calm come over her as she went onstage. She knew God was rewarding her for her determination to honor her standards. While she was not always allowed to control her wardrobe choices on the program, she tried to wear appropriate outfits whenever she was allowed to choose what to wear.

Source: Chelsie Hightower’s Experience on SYTYCD
August 17, 2008 — Bryce Haymond on Millennial Star

Torah isn’t afraid to tell reporters she doesn’t drink or smoke, or even drink coffee, and that she is not going to become sexually active until she’s married. She even explained she wanted a Mormon boyfriend who shares her beliefs, and she found this in Jake Welch, an American snowboarder who is also a Mormon. When asked how she would celebrate a win, she cheerfully said water was her celebration drink of choice.

Torah said, “”I have strong beliefs and they never waver. (The gospel) keeps me grounded and gives me purpose to what I am doing. I think the way we believe as Latter-day Saints is amazing, especially in the world today” (Torah Bright Wins Gold Medal, LDS Newsroom Blog.)

Torah is a great example to teenagers who are being made fun of for their standards or who are being told they need to be immoral to be popular. She is beautiful, talented, and popular and she’s done it all without sacrificing her beliefs. She’s proof that the world is lying when it says you have to lower your standards to make it in the world.

Sure, it’s easier to be different when you’re famous, but Torah hasn’t been famous all her life. She made the commitment to her standards long before sponsors were desperate to sign her. Her past choices, made before she knew how things would turn out, are important now, because once you’re famous, everyone starts searching for the scandals in your past. Torah’s lifelong choice to be moral is paying off now, as it does for everyone who chooses Jesus over the world.