Combined: Instagram photo scavenger hunt

Last night for mutual we had a combined activity and the Young Men were in charge. We split into teams and had an "Instagramenger Hunt." It was a ton of fun! We had 1 hour to take as many pictures from the list as we could. Sorry I don't have a hard copy of the list, I hope you can read what we did.

We ended up having 3 teams with 2 or 3 youth each. We made sure each team had a smartphone to take pictures and post with. You could post to Instagram or to Facebook. The bottom of our list also says that each like you get is worth 4 extra points and each repost is worth seven extra points.

Our group ended up going to 7-11, a street that was the same as the last name as one of our group members, and my house. We tried handing out a Book of Mormon and were (politely) rejected. We also tried to take a picture of a security officer doing the Heisman pose, but he refused also. But we did manage to finish 9 other tasks. And the instagram account we posted from was very busy that night and we got enough likes to give us about twice as many points as the second place team! We were all very excited to win! 

After refreshments were handed out, our YM president talked to us about how easy it was for us to do these things and post them to the internet. He encouraged the youth to post more things on social media that have to do with the church. It doesn't have to be anything too spiritual, but something that will start a conversation with our friends. When our friends ask about the pictures from tonight, we can tell them that we were at a church activity and then possibly invite them to a future activity based on that. It was a great close to the evening and I hope it inspired the youth to be member missionaries.  

And just for fun, here are some pictures of our group: 

"Disney bounding" as Belle

"Disney bounding" as Kristoff from Frozen

Hanging from the same tree branch

Red straws in nostrils (they were small straws)

The First Article of Faith on a public sidewalk

Thursday Temple Trip

Last night for mutual was our temple night to do baptisms for the dead, which replaced our regular Tuesday night activity. Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend, as I couldn't find a babysitter for my son. It sounds like everyone had fun, and I'm sure they all enjoyed going to Tito's Tacos afterwards, which is tradition in our ward and a Los Angeles classic.

If you would like, you can learn a little bit more about baptisms for the dead here or here.  For those who are fortunate enough to live close to a temple, this is a regular activity. Our youth are usually able to go once or twice a year with the stake.

Out of town - Cupcake wars Round 2

Last night for mutual I was unfortunately out of town.

We had so much fun with cupcake wars last time, that we decided to do it again. But this time we invited the young men to compete against us. I heard that the young men won, which was a shock to me! It sounds like everyone had fun. Sorry I can't give you any details.

Yoga Night with Relief Society

Last night for mutual we combined with our Relief Society sisters (the woman's organization of the church) for a yoga night and healthy eating demonstration. We had a really good turnout from the Relief Society, so it was a great night. Our RS president invited one of her friends who is a professional instructor to come help us do a simple routine. Everyone brought their own mat or was able to borrow from someone, although most ladies said they were inexperienced with yoga. A few ladies didn't make it through the routine, but everyone seemed to enjoy it. The 3 young women from our group who showed up are all dancers, so they had almost no trouble with it.

After our yoga session, we had a quick cooking lesson from one of the Relief Society sisters. She made a quinoa black bean mango salad for us that was delicious. We also snacked on some fruit afterwards too.

It was a wonderful night and I think everyone had a great time! Thank you to our Relief Society for all their help!

Combined: The Amazing Race: Come Unto Christ Edition

Last night for mutual we participated in the Amazing Race! This is one of my favorite TV shows, so I was especially excited to be able to put this together. Well, I don't know if I should say put it together, because I was fortunate enough to find this amazing activity here on Sugardoodle. Basically I just had to print everything off and set up a few things around our church building. I was pretty sure we wouldn't have that many youth show up, so I eliminated a few of the tasks (like the faith fall), and we only raced with 2 teams. We also didn't email any of the pictures and make a slideshow afterwards (not that tech savvy).

This activity was a big hit! Some of the youth were skeptical at first, but once we got going everyone had tons of fun. We had 2 adults go with each group. The youth either picked  a number 1-18 or randomly drew an envelope out of their packet. They then had to complete whatever challenge was inside. Each challenge coordinated with a section from the For Strength of Youth Pamphlet (learn more about that here). Some were simple reading and writing, others had more physical activities. Points were awarded for each activity. I left assigning points up to the discretion of the leaders with each team. If there was little or no effort put in they were allowed to dock points. The teams had to be back in the Relief Society room at 8:10 sharp or they were docked points also. The winning team won some "gold nuggets" (Rolos). And everyone who participated was able to "partake in the love of Christ" (heart shaped Reese's, hooray for clearance valentine's day candy). Our YW President spoke to us about coming unto Christ after everything had settled down. We actually got some responses out of the youth, which was so nice to hear. It was an awesome activity. Thanks again to Caytee at Sugardoodle for putting it all together. They couldn't stop talking about it afterwards.


I currently only have pictures from 1 group, hopefully I will have some from the second soon.

Modeling a modest outfit

After the floor maze. This was really hard they said.

Balloon portraits of themselves. 

Combined: White Elephant Gift party

Last night for mutual we had our annual White Elephant exchange gift party. We ask all the youth to bring a gift under $5, we draw numbers out of a hat and let the kids choose and steal gifts. We usually supply dinner for the kids too, things like pizza or panda express. It's always a lot of fun. I actually wasn't able to make it, but I'm sure they had a great time. I heard there were eggnog cupcakes involved though, so I wish I had made it. It's a fun easy night that the youth look forward to each year.

Combined: Bowling

Last night for mutual we went bowling! I love bowling: my family is really big into it, my brother is a professional in Japan, and I was even on my high school's bowling team. So I had a great time last night, and I think the young men and young women did too. Some of our kids had never been before, or only been once or twice, so I was able to offer lots of help, which they accepted very well and not begrudgingly. There were lots of high fives and camaraderie all around, so it was a great night. Here are some pictures.

My 18 month old had an amazing time!!

Since we have a smaller ward and youth group, it was within our budget to have this night. We usually plan all of our combined activities at the beginning of the year and allow room in the budget for 2 activities that spend money. This was one of those activities. 

PPP Party - Pumpkins

Last night for mutual we had our Personal Progress Party with a pumpkin theme for Halloween! The Young Men actually invited us to carve pumpkins with them tonight, and we gladly accepted. Everyone brought their own pumpkin (or we provided a few for some kids we knew couldn't afford it), we leaders provided carving tools and we let them loose.

For our personal progress portion of the night, I just pulled the YW out one by one and sat down with them for about 5 minutes to discuss how they are coming along with personal progress. We also did a little bit of planning for our upcoming Young Women in Excellence Night. We are hosting an Oscar themed night, inspired by this blog post, and I am really excited. So we asked each girl to begin thinking about what value she would like to speak about and to think of a woman in the ward who emulates that value. Some girls knew right a way, and some need extra time to think it over. It should be a great night.
 
Our pumpkin carving went a little over time because we have some pretty creative youth in our ward.

Yes, there was a lot of pretend stabbing going on. It could not be avoided.

It was a great night that helped our YM and YW bond. 

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.

Combined: Swimming

Last night for mutual was our combined activity. We did a farewell to summer (even if school did start a month ago) with a swimming party at our YW president's house. We grilled some hot dogs and cooked s'mores over the fire pit, and then pretty much let the kids do what they wanted. A diving contest was started, and everyone got squirted by the water guns. It was a fun, relaxing evening enjoyed by all.

Sky High Sports

Last night for mutual was our combined activity with the young men. We budget in 2 large expense activities per year, and last night was one of them. We went to Sky High Sports, which is a large trampoline jumping place. They have several different areas for you to jump, including a big foam pit to do flips and jumps into. The youth loved it. By the end of our hour they were all too tired to jump anymore. We ordered a pizza and soda for afterward. It was a ton of fun!

Saturday Skip: Stake youth beach activity

Yesterday for mutual our stake youth leaders organized a beach day for the youth. At a previous SYC, the representatives from each ward voted on a beach activity. Then each ward was assigned a food or drink to bring. We were in charge of the cut up watermelon (which is the only assignment that really requires work. Other assignments include grapes, bags of chips, cookies, and drinks. We got stuck with this because no one from our ward could attend this SYC). The stake provided fried chicken for lunch.

We met at our church building at 10:30 for rides and then headed out to Zuma beach. The stake leaders had an openeing prayer and then everyone kind of did their own thing after that. They did have one game that was optional: players put on a T-Shirt, ran into the ocean to get it wet, and then ran back and rung it out over a bucket. The first to fill the bucket won. Lots of kids brought booogie boards, some kids played volleyball. Someone brought Bocce ball, which was a hit, especially for our ward.

We had a really good turnout this year. I think everyone had a good time. I was able to bring my husband and 1 year old, which always makes it more fun. It was a pretty simple activity to organize, and luckily we live close enough to the beach to have this happen every year.

Combined-Movie Night: Wreck-It Ralph

Last night for mutual was our combined activity. We set up a big screen on the stage in our gym and brought in a projector and speakers to watch Wreck-It Ralph. Our YM president has a popcorn machine, so he popped some kernels for us. We also had drinks, M&M's and red vines.

People wore their comfy clothes and some brought pillows and blankets. The couches from the lobby were relocated into the gym also. It was a fun night and we ended up watching the whole movie.

Saturday Skip: Camping

For our combined activity this month, we went camping. I believe this is a yearly tradition for our ward. Last year they went camping on the beach. This year we went up to the Angeles National Forest to the Angeles Crest Campground.

We met at the church around 4, left around 5 and got up to the campsite about 6. One of the cars in our caravan ran out of gas a few campgrounds away from us. Luckily they found us, but not after we started worrying about them having gotten lost. My husband was coming up later and so he was able to bring up a gallon of gas with him so that they could get back down to a gas station.

We set up the girls in one tent on one side of the campsite and the boys in another on the other side. The leaders mostly slept in their own tents.

The girls pranked the boys by putting rocks under their tent after it was all set up. The boys made gifts for the girls on Tuesday night. They painted little first aid kits, gave a box of matches with a striker, made fire starter in an altoids tin, and also made fire starters out of cotton pads and parafin wax. We were pleasantly surprised.

Luckily we were able to have a fire up in the mountains. The young men were in charge of dinner. They brought chili and cornbread. For dessert we put marshmallows, chocolate chips and fruit in waffle cones and let it all melt together over the fire. That was delicious. The young women were in charge of breakfast. We brought danishes and muffins and also cooked bacon and eggs. All the food turned out really well.

We played mafia around the campfire after dinner. I think everyone enjoyed that. In the morning after we got all packed up we had a bocce ball tournament. That was also a lot of fun. We headed back down to town around 11 and stopped at In'n'Out for lunch before heading home. I would say the camp out was a success.

Adam (1 year old) loved camping

Bocce Ball

No mutual - Saturday Skip

Last night for mutual we skipped because all the youth in our ward are going camping on Friday. I'm excited!

Indexing

Last night for mutual our youth combined per a special request from the Bishop. Originally I just had this planned for the young women, but the bishopric is trying to push family history to all the youth in our ward, as are the apostles also (see https://www.lds.org/youth/family-history).

I myself feel really intimated by trying to search for ancestors, plus my parents have a good handle on our family tree, but I still feel like I should be involved in family history, and indexing is a wonderful and easy way to do that. Indexing involves viewing handwritten records (marriage, birth and death certificates, military enlistment forms, censuses, etc...) and typing them into a database so that those who  are searching for their ancestors can easily just do a text search through these records rather than spending hours looking through microfiche. Here are some great videos to introduce the topic: http://bcove.me/628xt280 and http://bcove.me/41ok3bjr

I found a great slideshow to use for our activity here: http://www.sugardoodle.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8808

On the Sunday before, I asked our Bishop for the membership numbers of all our youth so that each could create their own lds.org account and sign into the indexing program at their homes. We set a goal to do 1000 names as a group by July 4th. I was a little bummed because they just indexed the 1 billionth record a few days before our activity and I was hoping to use that as some motivation for the youth. Oh well. It was fun activity and I know some of the youth are excited to get into family history.



To download the indexing software, go here (you do have to download software to your computer):https://indexing.familysearch.org/newuser/nugetstarted.jsf. At this time they are working on building apps for phones and tablets, but for now you will need a computer.

For more resources, go here: https://indexing.familysearch.org/public/publications.jsf?lng=en-US

Also, here is a tutorial to take you through indexing (it also has a handout you can print out): http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/FHD/Local_Support/FamilySearchIndexing/EN/Indexing/Lesson1/page8985.html