Why can't I date before I'm 16? Why do young women have to wait until 21 to serve a mission? Why is it such a big deal if boys sag their pants?

Teenagers (and their parents!) have lots of questions. As we taught seminary, institute and at EFY we noticed a common theme behind many of these questions. Lots of youth wanted to know why . “I know I should read the scriptures,” one might say, “but why ?” “I know I should be keep the law of chastity—but why is it such a big deal?” “ Why can't I bear hug when I dance?”

Most Latter-day Saints know what the standards of the Church are. For example, we know what fasting is, what temple marriage is, what it means to be morally clean, what is and is not modest (down to the square fabric inch!). But why have those standards been given? More importantly, why should we obey those commandments? Answering why usually proves more difficult for people (even parents) because it is something we don't teach and talk about enough. However, when we understand why commandments have been given it helps us have more meaningful and powerful obedience.

Elder David A. Bednar said, “It concerns me as I see young people in our Church who know all the correct things they should do and do not have a clue as to why…Do we understand why? If we do not understand the why, then the power available to us through the doctrine of Christ will not be evident in our lives ” (Elder David A. Bednar, “Teach Them to Understand,” Address at BYU-Idaho, June 4, 1998, emphasis added).”

Anthony had an experience as a child that taught him the power of understanding why.

“My family arrived early to church one Sunday morning, before the Aaronic priesthood had finished preparing the sacrament. I was about ten years old at the time. As we waited, I remember watching the teachers finish filling the plastic cups with water and setting the treys neatly in order, then unfolding the white sacrament sheet to cover them up. As they did so, it suddenly looked to me like there was a dead body under the sheet laying on the sacrament table. In my juvenile mind, I thought it was kind of funny. I turned to my mom and said jokingly, ‘Hey mom, look! It looks like there's a dead body under there.' To which my mom replied in a whisper, and in all seriousness: ‘It's supposed to.'

“‘What? It is supposed to look like a dead body under there? What kind of morbid church do we belong to?' I remembered thinking. To explain, my mom asked me what the bread and water symbolized, and as I gave answers about the blood and body of Jesus, it suddenly dawned on me that the figure represented under the sheet was Jesus Christ's body.

“Not long after, I was ordained into the Aaronic priesthood and as a teacher helped prepare the sacrament. That conversation with my mother changed the way I performed my duties. I never lowered that sheet over those sacred emblems without thinking about why we were doing so, and what it represented. Understanding the reasons ‘why' behind something as small as a white cloth on a sacrament table made my obedience more meaningful and powerful.”

There are why's for everything we do.

As a member of the General Young Women's Presidency Sister Julie B. Beck said: “I think we underestimate youth. They're in a searching age—it's the “why” age. There's a reason for that: the Lord wants them to get their own testimonies. It's leaders' and parents' job to give them the doctrinal “whys” and to back up standards by teaching about the reasons for them.” (Sister Julie Beck, Ensign, October 2007, p.14)

A powerful reason why we should desire to know and explain why is because when we understand the logical reasons behind what we are being asked to do, we are more likely to obey. Some people are disobedient—not out of rebellion, but out of ignorance and uncertainty. They simply don't understand the principle behind the practice. If a mother tells her small child, “Don't eat those cookies on the table” but doesn't provide any reason why, some kids still swipe a cookie when mom isn't looking. But if mom says, “Don't eat those cookies on the table because they are doggie biscuits” there would be no problem.

When we first wrote this book our intent was teach the doctrinal “whys” behind the commandments. The book was originally written just like a regular book – print on the page, and that was it. (Here's a snap shot of the draft we sent to Deseret Book):

After we submitted the book, Chris Schoebinger, a product director at Deseret Book asked us to go through the book a second time to add in visuals, statistics, object lessons, graphs, comics – things that we would use in our classroom teaching; things that would make the book come alive. His idea was that many people have a limited attention span when it comes to reading and that people would be more likely to read the book if it was visually appealing. At first we were hesitant about this approach, but once we got started, the benefit of writing and reading in this format quickly became apparent.

The above section was reworked and became something like this:

The next big piece of feedback came from Sheri Dew. As she reviewed the book, she said something like, “This book is good, but in addition to answering questions like, “Why should I be modest” we need to get down to more nitty-gritty questions – questions like, “Why shouldn't I wear flip flops to church?” “Why can't I wear a strapless dress one night out of the year?” or “Why is it going too far to passionately kiss someone?” Since we were already teaching the major doctrinal principles in each chapter, this was a perfect suggestion as it allowed us to then get into more specific ‘why's' connected to each standard. Once we taught the principles, we could better understand the practices. So we went back through the book a third time!

Our original Table of Contents went from looking like this:

To looking like this:

There were many other people at Deseret Book who worked on the design and layout of the book to make it visually appealing. We're grateful for this team effort; we could never have done it without everyone's involvement.

Another aspect of the book is its connection with http://ldswhy.com. This site was designed as a place people could go to see “extras” from the book (like watching videos and downloading scripture mastery songs), and also so that people could ask questions. We've been surprised at the number of questions and the diversity of where people have come from when visiting the site. In the past few months we've had visitors from over eighty countries, from Albania to Zimbabwe.

Understanding “the why” is vital. Now, it's also important to point out that some times we don't know the why. Adam obeyed the commandment to sacrifice for “many days” before he understood the reason for the commandment (see Moses 5:5-7 ). Sometimes we need to do the same. We also think that Adam's worship and sacrifice became much more powerful once he knew why he was doing it.

President Boyd K. Packer said, “It isn't always easy to give you a ‘why' for everything. But we owe it to you of the coming generation to do more than just say, ‘Don't!'”(Elder Boyd K. Packer, Conference Report, April 1963, p.107).

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Check out some specific questions addressed in the book: