Monday, November 25, 2013

Sunday Special: Young Women in Excellence

Last night at church we had our Young Women in Excellence Program. Each year we celebrate the accomplishments of the young women in our ward. We decided on an Oscar theme this year, inspired by this blog post. Ours was very similar, we even had the same value cards in frames! The invitations stated "Black Tie Optional," and our attendees did not disappoint.

We had a red carpet through our foyer into the Relief Society Room, lined with lights. We wrote out the girls names on stars and laid those on the red carpet also.

In our room we hung some stars and twirls from the ceiling and had lights around the chalkboard.

We started the evening with a song and a prayer. After an introduction by our YW president, we had each of the young women come up and talk about a value of their choice, hopefully one that they have been working on throughout the year. Then, each girl presented an award to a woman in our ward who she feels exemplifies that value. We handed out star shaped ornaments to the ladies (and to the girls afterward) and thanked them for being a shining star in our ward. We wanted the awards to be cute and functional, so now everyone has a new ornament for their Christmas tree. I'm always surprised at how well the young women prepare their little talks for these events. The same thing happened at New Beginnings earlier this year. We don't always get to see it in class when they have to spontaneously answer questions, but when they prepare and read something, their testimonies shine through like spotlights (ha!). We have a small but wonderful group of young women and I love being able to work with them.

We also had each of the leaders give a small recap of one or more of the activities during the year that stuck out to them. Our Bishop gave some closing remarks and then we ended with a song and prayer, followed by sparkling cider and golden treats.

It was a wonderful evening and everyone had a great time. I believe we are going to try to make this an annual event.

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