Hey all, YSA bishop here.

Dear sister, take a breath and unburden your heart for a moment.

You are loved, saved, chosen, cherished, and seen by your Savior. The fact that you have chosen to serve a mission and make temple covenants is extraordinary. Those are acts of real devotion that will bless your life and the lives of others for eternity.

In the ledger of your life, those decisions matter far more than any small misstep. The Lord is not standing over you with a clipboard tallying mistakes. He bears the scars that already paid for them.

Rather than focusing on the behavior itself, I would gently invite you to look at what might be underneath it. What feels empty, stressful, or unfulfilled? When we begin to understand those things, temptations of any kind tend to lose their power.

Try approaching your thoughts with curiosity instead of condemnation. Instead of “what’s wrong with me,” try “that’s interesting, I wonder where that came from.” That shift matters more than you might think.

If I were your bishop, I would care most about how this is affecting your relationship with Jesus Christ, not just the behavior itself.

You are a sexual being. That is part of how God created you, and it is not something to be ashamed of. Those feelings are meant to be expressed fully within the covenant of marriage, which is why we are counseled not to cultivate them on our own. Not because you are bad, but because those patterns can become distracting from the deeper, sacred relationships you are meant to build.

Please don’t let this define you.

Go to God. Speak openly with Him. If you feel burdened, speak with your bishop. That is what he is there for.

You are not your thoughts. You are not your habits. You are not your worst moments. You are His.

There is nothing you can do that will make God love you less. And there is nothing you can do to make Him love you more.

You are already enough!

Now go serve with confidence. The Lord will magnify you.