The story of the girl on the young womanhood medallion and cover of "My Personal Progress" books really started on Thanksgiving morning just before the books were scheduled to be printed. Most of the words had been written and checked and double checked and approved by the many people who approve church publications. The illustrations had been completed and approved. The layout for the book was ready and all we were waiting for was the final approval of the symbol to be embossed on the front cover, and this was in the hands of the general authorities. After nearly three years, this project was finally nearing completion.

It was about 10:00 in the morning when my telephone rang and it was Sister Ruth Funk, then general president of the Young Women. She said, "Jayne, there's something I want you to think about while you're stuffing your turkey today." This was not unusual because I had been privileged to work closely with the general presidency as the personal progress was conceptualized and written. But there was something in her tone of voice that made my heart skip a beat. Then she said, "At the meeting of the general authorities yesterday our symbol was not approved."

My mind raced back over the long months since February, that we had prayerfully searched for a symbol to represent the Young Woman program. After rejecting many designs we had finally selected a simple geometric symbol designed for us by an outstanding artist in Düsseldorf, Germany, by the name of Hagen Haltern. He called it a "tri-knotted torus" and described it as "a perfect circle that has been cut, tied, and then rejoined to form an unending pathway to eternal progression." It had seemed right to us.

Taking a deep breath, I said, "Oh...Okay. What was the problem?" She told me that they didn't want a geometric symbol. They wanted something recognizably Later-day Saint and something more representative of the Young Women program. Knowing full well that the deadline for any changes was already past, I asked when she needed a new design. She said that Tuesday would do because she had a meeting that day with our advisors and they would submit the new design to the general authorities on the following Thursday. My comment was, "Oh. Then all you want me to do is come up with a little miracle between now and Tuesday. Is that right?" And she said, "No. By Sunday. The Young Women presidency needs to approve it first."

Trying to keep my rising panic under control, I excused myself from the kitchen full of BYU students who were my guests...after delegating the salad and yams and turkey to them...and went into my bedroom where I often have private conversations with my Father in Heaven. I knew I needed help...and fast. As I knelt to pray I began to see a girl standing in the distance, but I quickly dismissed the thought because we had already been through the trauma of trying to decide what nationality could possibly represent all of the Young Women in a world-wide Church. It had taken six young women of various ethnic backgrounds to even begin to represent the various areas of focus in the program. How could we possibly select just one? But the thought perished, and finally I began to realize that I was not seeing the facial features nor coloring of the girl's hair, or skin, or eyes; I was seeing a total girl who was prepared to go out into the world and meet the challenges ahead. I could see this young woman standing on a hilltop. Her hair and her dress were blowing in the wind. She had paused in the split second in time between girlhood and womanhood. Confident and prepared in every way for womanhood but she had not yet taken that step, she was looking up toward her Father in Heaven because she knew that he was the source of her strength.

Again I tried to push the image aside in my mind. Then a feeling of peace came to me. I glanced at the clock and was amazed that I had only been praying a few minutes. "Are prayers really answered this fast?" I asked myself. I picked up the telephone in the bedroom and called Sister Funk. I described what I was seeing in my mind's eye. She began to be excited as only Sister Funk can. She said, "Yes, that's it. It's beautiful. Now get it ready."

Get it ready!!! How could I get it ready? I can put words together and organize information but anything to do with the visual arts I have always left to those who were blessed with those talents and I was not one of them. But then, almost like being led by the hand, I remembered a small statue I had studied at length during a meeting in the Church office building a few weeks before. The title of the statue was "All is Well." It was a Pioneer mother and father and little girl with their arms wrapped around each other in a loving family group. The original stands in the graveyard where Brigham Young is buried in Salt Lake City. I knew that if I could find the person who created that statue my design would be prepared. But I didn't know if the artist was in Germany or New York or Japan or where. However, I did know that Sister Ardeth Kapp of the Young Women general presidency knew, because we had discussed the gentle look on the little girl's face and she had told me that the artist was a spiritual man. So I called Sister Kapp, who listened to my description and called the artist, Brother Edward J. Fraughton, he happened to live in Midvale, Utah. Being Thanksgiving, Brother Fraughton was home and although extremely busy with a myriad of other projects he agreed to meet us the next morning.

Friday found us at his studio and home in an old renovated building across the street from what has now become the Jordan Temple site. While waiting for him, we admired his work. He took us on a tour of his foundry where he casts his own bronzes and as we went along I casually priced various items, hoping I could someday afford to buy one of his exquisite pieces, and found that they were selling for $800, $1500, $2000, and one grouping was going for $22,000! At this point I wanted to crawl out of there on my hands and knees so he wouldn't see me, because I suddenly realized that we were there without any kind of commission to offer this outstanding craftsman for designing our young woman. We didn't even have official permission. All we had was a dream in our hearts for the young women of the church and a vision and a prayer.

Sister Kapp explained the Young Women program briefly to Brother Fraughton and helped him visualize the qualities we hoped to see young women develop through the program, and then I described the young woman I had seen in my mind. This wonderfully sensitive man listened and said, "I, too, dream dreams and see visions. I visualize my work spiritually before I ever create with my hands." And with that, he asked when we needed to have the work done. This was an comfortable question, I remember studying the Oriental design of the rug on the hardwood floor as I said quietly, "Sunday." He explained that it was impossible to have it ready by this Sunday but agreed to do some drawings to get us started. We picked up the drawings and knew that they weren't quite what we had in mind, but it bought us an additional week of time. After more drawings and another week of fasting for him and prayer, he called on the following Saturday to say that there was no way he could have the work finished Sunday and that "the brethren know my work. They'll just have to trust me." We knew that wasn't good enough. We needed to have our symbol in sculptured form so that those who needed to approve the design could visualize the medallion and see how the design would look when embossed on the cover and make their final decision in a hurry. There was no time left if the books were to be ready for distribution throughout the world for the coming year. So I said, "I'm sorry, but we've got to have her, Brother Fraughton. Could you try?"
On Sunday night about 11:00 my phone rand again and Brother Fraughton told us to come pick her up. Sister Funk, Sister Hortense Child, the other counselor in the general presidency , and I went to his studio. He placed in our hands a five inch piece of glass on which he had sculpted in clay, the beautiful young woman you see on the cover of "My Personal Progress" books. We recognized her at once. And before making molds of her for us, he said, "I began working on her this morning and her dress and hair and the flowers came quickly. But when I was working on her face she kept looking down. I remembered what you said about confidence and looking up toward he Father in Heaven but I couldn't make her do it." He said that from time to time during the day he returned to the piece and worked on her face but couldn't get her to look up. "Finally," he said, "I made this a matter of prayer." After working over four hours on the face, he either wanted the courage to tell us she should look down or the ability to make her raise her eyes to the Lord. Picking up the small surgical scalpel he had used in fashioning the young woman, he said, "I touched her chin with my scalpel and she looked up at me. That's when I called you."

We mounted two white plaster of paris molds of our young woman on deep blue velvet and submitted them to our advisers for their approval and then to the Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency of the Church. This time their comments were, "Yes. Yes, that's it. That's what we were looking for."

I bear testimony that the young woman that represents Young Womanhood on the medallion and publications for the young women of the Church was literally a gift from God and recognized as such by those who are in authority, as well as by the artist who fashioned her, and this former general board member whose prayers were answered and who was allowed to serve as a handmaiden of the Lord.

One final note. As I held her in my hands that unfortunate, snowy, Sunday evening, I could also see her as a full sized statue entitled "Handmaiden" standing in the flower filled plaza between the two Church office buildings, she was facing the temple. A dream yet unfulfilled.