Sister *****, in the authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood, I lay my hands upon your head to deliver a patriarchal blessing. Know that God loves you. He is aware of the events of your life. He knows your daily activities. I bless you to sense His nearness, and to have confidence that He is always available. As you have need for counsel, comfort, or strength, you can pray to Him at any moment and receive those blessings.

I bless you with a sense of the importance of your gender. You are one of God's elect daughters. The fact that you are a female spirit is part of your eternal identity. God loves His daughters. He has given you opportunity, when the time is right, to be a co-creator with Him in preparing mortal bodies for other spirits to inhabit, that they might have the mortal experience. I bless you to recognize the importance of that power. You will have opportunities to do many different things of significance in your life. Know that none of them is more significant or important than the ability to be a mother. The world around us will work to convince you otherwise. Know that God has placed the power of procreation in you and that it is His gift to you.

I bless you as you pursue education, as you work and study hard, that you can sense the importance of gaining knowledge. Whatever we learn in this world makes us more like God and is one of the very few things which will go with us when we depart mortality. I bless you to be able to balance the effort you spend in learning of secular things and spiritual things. I bless you to recognize the importance of the simple private religious practices of daily scripture study and daily prayer. As you have prayer both morning and night, and as you spend time with the scriptures each day, you will sense a nearness to God which you otherwise will not have. Your testimony of the reality of a living Father in Heaven and of Jesus Christ as the Savior of this world will grow and increase. That testimony will become a powerful influence upon you, to help you as you navigate the pitfalls of this world. We live in troubled times. As you work to stay close to your God, His Spirit will direct you and help you to make difficult decisions, to understand the doctrines of the kingdom, and to rejoice in doing what is right.

A patriarch's responsibility, as he lays hands upon a person's head, is to declare lineage in the house of Israel, which is God's covenant people. You know already about covenants; you have made them as you were baptized. I bless you to sense their importance. I feel prompted to say that God has a blessing for you through the tribe of Ephraim in the house of Israel. As a part of that particular group among God's covenant people, you have the privilege and responsibility to declare the glad tidings which the gospel of Jesus Christ is. God does talk to men in our day. He has revealed Himself again. His Church is restored to the earth today with Priesthood authority. There are people in this world who look for that, who yearn for it, and whom you can influence personally. I bless you with a spirit of missionary work. Whether or not you serve full-time as a young adult or serve throughout your life by letting others know of your discipleship of Jesus Christ, is a decision the Spirit can help you make. What is important is that you do it. Be quick to let others know what your feelings are. Approach them in a loving manner. There will be those who are influenced by you, who will see the happiness in your life and want that same happiness for themselves. You can direct them to the source of all happiness, which is our God.

I bless you, when the time is right, with the opportunity to marry and become a parent. I bless you to prepare for marriage by becoming the kind of person you would like to marry. As you do that, you will be attractive to someone else, who has made similar preparations. As you fall in love and wish to be married, I bless you with a desire to have that marriage solemnized in the temple of God, where promises are made that your marriage can last beyond the grave. You can be together with loved ones in eternity. I bless you to sense the importance of family. You were born to a family which is sealed together, and which has opportunity to be together eternally. You can extend that chain of linked generations as you go to the temple for yourself. I bless you to understand the importance of the covenants you will make when you go to be personally endowed. God has great promises for you. As you learn to keep the covenants you make there, you will sense that they are the vehicle you can use to do your part to become perfected.

I bless you to understand the role Jesus Christ has as the Savior of the world. He is your personal Savior. He loves you enough that He was willing to suffer in a way that we cannot even imagine. He allowed His life to be taken, though He had power over death. His resurrection is a reality. Because He was resurrected, you will be, too. I bless you with a powerful witness of His part in the plan of salvation, for the thing that He alone could do for you.

I bless you, as you identify them, with the spiritual gifts which are yours, and with an understanding that, as you develop them, they will be tools in your hands and in God's, to bless the lives of those around you. Recognize spiritual gifts as opportunities to give enhanced service as you are called to serve. I sense that you will have opportunities and calls to serve in significant ways in the formal Church of Jesus Christ. You will be placed in positions where you can have influence on individual people. You can love them and point them in a direction which will help them to successfully navigate mortality. You can be an instrument in God's hands in lightening the loads and lighting the way of your fellow beings in this life.

I bless you to continue to have the kind and loving spirit which you now possess, and with ability to be a peacemaker wherever you are. I sense that that is one of the roles you play here in your own family. Know of Heavenly Father's love. Know that though She is not revealed, you also have a Heavenly Mother. She loves you a great deal and is most interested and concerned with your mortal development here. Look to your mortal mother. She can teach you many things about what your Heavenly Mother is like.

I bless you with an understanding of the principle of agency. I bless you to know that God offers you everything He has, but that He will never force you to do good any more than He will to do evil. He teaches us. He loves us. He lets us decide how much of all He offers that we are willing to accept. I bless you to want all that God offers to you and with ability to receive it all and to become, one day, even as God is. I bless you with power to come forth in the morning of the first resurrection, as you choose to, when those who rise from the grave will be privileged to live in the very presence of Heavenly parents. I pronounce the blessing on you in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ, amen.