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.

One Act Play Wrap Up

Tonight was our performance of our One Act Play at the stake center along with all the other wards in the stake. All the shows were wonderful! We have a very creative stake, which isn't too surprising since we live next to Hollywood. We spent the last 3 mutuals and a few nights in between preparing and rehearsing for the show, and it turned out great! I'm so proud of our youth and everyone in the ward who participated.

Sisters ready to go

Getting Zombie makeup

Zombies!

Thriller Dance-Opening Number

Thriller Dance

Our main zombie, R.M.

Surpise! We won first place!!  We also won best script and best costumes. 

 Our prize was a box of candy bars!

This was a great experience, even if our stake did throw it together kind of last minute. I'm so glad our ward got to participate. 

One act plays for the roadshow - Week 1

Last night for  mutual we had our first rehearsal for our stake's roadshow. Each ward will be performing a one act play in October with the theme "Let your light so shine." One of our YW leaders wrote the script and is also directing, so for the next few weeks until we perform, out mutual activities are going to be devoted to rehearsal for this. This week we ran through the script once and then practiced the opening number: Thriller. Two of our young women are going to be the choreographers, so they got to try their hands at teaching last night. They did a great job for their first time, and the opening is looking good.

Two of our young women directing everyone

This is my husband as a zombie

Zombies! We have several primary children who are excited to participate in our show.