“What Are You Carrying In Your Backpack?” by John Bytheway is an amazing audio talk download. My teenage daughter and a group of youth listened to this on a trip to the temple. They were unable to complete the entire 62-minute talk on the way there, so they could hardly wait to return to the vehicle and hear the rest. When she came home she stated emphatically that I needed to listen to this talk because it was “great.” I even heard that the girls were quoting it in their young women’s class the following Sunday.

This talk had all of John Bytheway’s style with plenty of humor in the right places and yet a spirit that spoke to my soul. With an understanding of what teenagers are anxious about, what burdens they carry, and a sense of what they feel about themselves, Bytheway is able to reach out and bridge a gap. He is able to believably say “I know what you think and feel because I have been there, and I know this will help you because it helped me.” The title led me to believe it would be about unloading burdens, and yet after listening I gained a stronger understanding of who I am and how that knowledge can make things easier to manage. As Bytheway refers to the Serenity Prayer, I feel a resolve to change what I put in my backpack, because I cannot always change the path.

“What Are You Carrying In Your Backpack?” by John Bytheway is another great audio talk to add to your library and is just long enough to make the burden of dishes, laundry, or car pool seem a lot lighter and even uplifting for you and your teenagers.

N. Lenfesty,
Canadian Mother of Four