Sydney had to give her very first talk in Sacrament meeting a couple of weeks ago and she did such an awesome job!  I wanted to share it with you.  It was well written (she did it her self) she had a couple of cute jokes, and it had a great message!  She was the talk of the day at church!  We are so proud Syd!  I meant to put it up earlier…but time just got away from me.  Well, better late than never!

Hi! My name is Sydney Bright. Today I was asked to talk about Friends.

When I got this topic I was so excited! Everyone says they like Ross and Rachel the best but Joey is so my favorite!

But when I couldn’t find anything on what is the world’s greatest sitcom- not that I have ever seen it- in The For Strength of Youth Pamphlet I thought maybe I touch on what WAS in The For Strength of Youth Pamphlet about friends.

Now I rather not read straight from so I will tell you the highlights of what it said:

Friendshipping
Choose good friends with whom you share common high standards.
Go out of your way to help shy friends.
Treat everyone with kindness and dignity.
Invite your nonmember friends to Church activities.

In James 4: Friendship with the world is an enemy against God. I think friends without common high standards as you can sometimes lead to a friend ship with worldly things, in other words, immodesty, foul language, unrighteous standards, etc. How many of us have some friends who don’t share common good standards? Now I’m not going to tell you to go out and never ever talk to them again. I am going to caution you. If they do not share common standards you must be EXTRA careful to follow your standards. If your friends do it may be easier to stray from the path of righteous. You should try to get them to be more righteous and follow your example. Asking them not to cuss around you and things of that nature, could lead to things like missionary experiences.

Doctrine and Covenants 84: 77: And again I say unto you, my friends, it is expedient that I give unto you this commandment that ye become even as my friends in days when I was with them traveling to preach the gospel in my power. The lord calls his us his friends. And if we are righteous we can be Gods friend. We need break out of out shell and reach forth our hand to God. I someone has not broken out of their shell we need to be extras thoughtful and go out of way to help shy friends. It is important that we go out of our way to help our shy friends and even shy people who aren’t yet are friends. It’s a good way to make new friends!

Now, treat others with kindness and dignity. So Jesus Christ said, therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets. In other words, treat others the way you want to be treated. There is a scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 59: 6: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Thou shalt not steal; neither commit adultery, nor kill, nor do anything like unto it. The first part of this says that thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. You like to be treated with kindness and dignity and you do treat yourself with kindness and dignity. There is a story in the August 2010 Ensign call Those Who Are Different. This story is about a mentally handicapped boy. A lot of other people didn’t treat this boy with kindness and dignity because he was different. The For Strength of Youth Pamphlet and the Doctrine and Covenants says that we need to treat EVERYONE, whoever your neighbor may be as thyself- in other words, with kindness, love, dignity, and patience. We need to be nice to everybody because that’s how you want to be treated. And we need to treat everyone with dignity because that is what you would want people to treat you with. It’s what Jesus would do.

In the February 2010 edition of the New Era there is a story called Best Friends Forever. In this story there is a girl getting discussions from the missionaries in college. She was investigating and her friends started asking about the church and she invited them to come to church activities with her and in the end 5 girls were baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. That one girl- who wasn’t even a member yet- changed 4 girls lives! Our missionaries can’t get to everyone, they work day in and day out to help the teach people and sometimes they need a little assistance. Inviting your friend to church could change your friend’s life like it did these girls. And I know you would receive many blessing and they would be very grateful that you brought a new light to their world.

We can all be good friends and I know that The For Strength of Youth may be hard to follow sometimes but in the end its worth it. Friends may never have seemed like a big deal to you but to a lot of kids it is. They don’t have 20 girls to come and give them a big hug when they are lonely. Or 30 young men to do….. Whatever young men do. You can help to make a difference in your friend’s life. So do it. (BEAR TESTIMONY) I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ amen.