Duck Duck Goose

Last night for mutual we played Duck Duck Goose in the wrong shoes. On Sunday we had a lesson on Patriarchal Blessings taught by yours truly. Since I taught the lesson, I was in charge of the activity. I had everyone wear their favorite pair of shoes. Only 1 leader brought her high heels, which kind of surprised me. We had everyone take off their shoes and put them in 2 piles, left feet and right feet. Then we let them scramble and pick a shoe from each pile. The girls then had to wear these shoes while we played duck duck goose. Some shoes were too big, some were too small, and some of us had to limp because of the height difference on the heel.

We talked about how we each brought shoes that were fitted to us, and when we tried to wear someone else's shoes, things weren't very comfortable. In the same way, our patriarchal blessing is fitted to us. It is unique, and won't fit anyone else. We reviewed the purpose of patriarchal blessings also. Then we were able to pass off Individual Worth #2 in our Personal Progress books.

We only played a few rounds in the other persons shoes, mostly because I didn't want any broken ankles. The girls enjoyed playing this childhood game. We also let some of the younger girls who were hanging around the building play with us. It was a fun night.

I received inspiration for this activity here: http://somesweettalkinggirl.blogspot.com/2012/10/patriarchal-blessing-activity.html

Sunday Lesson: How can a patriarchal blessing help me?

I was able to teach the YW lesson this Sunday. Our topic was on Patriarchal blessings, which I feel pretty knowledgeable about. I am able to help our stake patriarch by typing up the blessings that he gives. I've been doing this over a year now, almost 2 now that I think about it, so I've read quite a few blessings in my day. 

We started out the lesson listening to this talk by Sister Beck, which I think really tells of the importance of patriarchal blessings and why we need them. Then I printed a copy of this article. Then I cut up each section, rolled up the papers and put them in the box. I had each girl draw a paper, and then she either had to act it out charades style, draw it pictionary style, or do a hangman puzzle of the question or key word in the question. Our girls are either not big into acting, or really like hangman, because that is the only thing they did. That's ok though, we still had fun and learned a lot. 

At the end of the lesson I handed out this quote to each of the girls to remind them that their blessings can be a guiding star for them. 


A Star to Follow


“A patriarchal blessing from an ordained patriarch can give us a star to follow, which is a personal revelation from God to each individual. If we follow this star, we are less likely to stumble and be misled. Our patriarchal blessing will be an anchor to our souls, and if we are worthy, neither death nor the devil can deprive us of the blessings pronounced. They are blessings we can enjoy now and forever.” President James E. Faust, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, “Priesthood Blessings,” Ensign, Nov. 1995, 63.
We counted this lesson towards IW #2, and we will sign it off for the girls on Tuesday after our activity, which ties into this lesson.

Saturday Skip Activity: Kidnapping

One of the girls in our ward turned 12 today, so we went over to her house early to kidnap her and take her to breakfast. We went over at 8 o'clock since her mom said she normally sleeps until 9 on Saturdays, but of course she chose this Saturday to wake up early. We still surprised her and dragged her to IHOP in her pajamas. The food was delicious and the company was even better. We had a wonderful time and are so excited for our new Beehive!

No mutual-Saturday Skip

This week for mutual we did not have a Tuesday night activity. Usually if we are having a Saturday activity we skip the Tuesday one. This Saturday is the birthday of our new beehive (12 year old girl), so we are going to kidnap her Saturday morning and take her out to breakfast in her PJ's. We're really excited!

Swimming

We had an unexpected flood at our church building last Saturday, and our YW  room got the worst of it I think, so we weren't able to use the building as it was still drying out. So instead, we went swimming at our YW president's house. It was a great day for it, we met a little early so the sun was still out and beautiful. The girls had a lot of fun and played games on their own while we leaders mostly sat in the hot tub.

Unfortunately the humidity from the flood caused our new vinyl sticky tree to fall of the wall, so we are going to have to fix our brand new decorations once we are back in the building.

PPP Party: Profiles

Every first Tuesday of the month we have a Personal Progress Program (PPP) Party, and we try to incorporate a fun P theme to go along with it. This month we chose profiles, with this as our inspiration: 

 http://middlechildcomplex.tumblr.com/post/2389902442

Instead of the church in the background, we are going to put pictures of the temple behind the profile of each girl. 

During each PPP Party, we take the girls aside and ask them for an update on their personal progress. It's good too take notes during these little meetings so that you can follow up with the girls next month and see how their goals went. We encourage the girls to set a new goal for the month or to continue whatever goal they are currently working on, and try to assist them in any way. This is also a great time to sign off on any goals the girls have finished.

For this activity, we also wanted the girls to work on and finish Individual Worth #7, so we took each girl's journal and wrote down some of the gifts that the Lord has given her. Each girl will then also need to have a friend and a family member do the same. Then she can compile her list of gifts and make a plan on how to improve and use these gifts. 

We wanted to redecorate our old outdated (think pale pink and tulle everywhere) young women's room. So after we finished tracing our profiles, which will be part of the new wall art, we took down all the ugly old pink and started putting up the new decorations.

The mutual theme this year is "Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come; for behold, it cometh quickly, saith the Lord. Amen." (Doctrine and Covenants 87:8). Our YW class has taken on the symbol of a tree to remind us of this theme. We found this great tree that sticks right on the wall to add to our decorations. We covered the bulletin boards in contact paper. I'll try to get more pictures of the completed room on Sunday. 

Since we had some extra time before we started decorating, we all sat together as a group and read the first chapter of 1st Nephi to get us started on our Book of Mormon Challenge from Sunday. 

I also meant to bring my laptop so that the girls could work on their indexing goal also, but I forgot it at home. Hopefully I will remember next time. 

Sunday Special: Book Of Mormon Challenge

Two of our girls both have their virtue goals completed, so to help them be motivated to finish the corresponding value project (which is to read the Book of Mormon), we started the Book of Mormon Challenge today, as presented by the blog Some Sweet Talking Girl (http://somesweettalkinggirl.blogspot.com/2012/04/book-of-mormon-challenge.html). This will be the first value project these girls will have completed, so we really wanted to make sure they stuck with it.

 

We gave each girl and leader a copy of this bookmark, which offers incentives for getting through different books of scripture. Once everyone (girls and leaders) is through, we get the reward! We may tweak a few activities as we go (this version is actually a tweaked one, the original is here: http://www.sugardoodle.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7152:book-of-mormon-incentive-boomark&catid=5047:bookmarks). We attached a scripture tracking chart to the back also help everyone easily record how far they are. I think the girls are really excited and hopefully we can knock it out this summer!

Hiking

Last night for mutual our Young Women went on hike. They left a little earlier than usual and just went on a local trail and had pizza at the end.

I was unable to attend since I didn't have anyone to watch my 11 month old. Our pregnant president didn't go either. She decided at our last meeting that we should aim to have 2 leaders at every mutual if possible. Since we only have 3 girls who currently attend regularly, this ratio works out well, and it allows us leaders to have some breaks on Tuesday nights, which is nice.  Of course if it is a really fun activity and we all want to attend, there is no problem with that either.

I'm sure the girls had fun though, and it sounded like a fairly simple activity. I'll try to get some feedback and more information from them on Sunday.