To Zakery: Sometimes decisions must be made in faith. You are loved.

Your Body Is a Gift

Your Heavenly Father has given you the opportunity to have your spirit and mortal body united at birth. It is a great gift, essential to your progression. Just knowing that should make you want to care for your body and avoid drugs, other harmful substances, immorality, and abuse or neglect. Part of that attitude of caring for our bodies should be to recognize that tattoos and body piercing are driven by the whims of fashion.

President Gordon B. Hinckley addressed the fads of tattooing and piercing:

“Now comes the craze of tattooing one’s body. I cannot understand why any young man—or young woman, for that matter—would wish to undergo the painful process of disfiguring the skin with various multicolored representations of people, animals, and various symbols. With tattoos, the process is permanent, unless there is another painful and costly undertaking to remove it. … A tattoo is graffiti on the temple of the body.

“Likewise the piercing of the body for multiple rings in the ears, in the nose, even in the tongue. Can they possibly think that is beautiful? It is a passing fancy, but its effects can be permanent. Some have gone to such extremes that the ring had to be removed by surgery. The First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve have declared that we discourage tattoos and also ‘the piercing of the body for other than medical purposes.’ We do not, however, take any position ‘on the minimal piercing of the ears by women for one pair of earrings’” (Ensign, Nov. 2000, 52).

Since “by the Spirit are all things made known unto the prophets” (1 Ne. 22:2), we should trust in their wisdom and counsel concerning the sacred nature of our bodies and avoid potentially harmful side effects and future regrets. Equally as important, our personal spirituality will flourish if we make such far-reaching decisions based on true principles and not the pull of fleeting fashions of the world.