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

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.

Blindfold Karaoke

Last night for mutual we did blindfold karaoke. I know that name sounds weird, and I wasn't sure what we were getting into either, but it was a really fun activity. It's pretty simple: each person takes a turn with a blindfold on and headphones in and turned up loud (not loud enough to deafen but enough to drown out other sounds). Then you record each person singing their song.

All the girls were kind of embarrassed at first, so we had one of our leaders go first. Then we alternated girls and leader. By the end the girls were having so much fun some of them wanted to go again. We all got a laugh during the performances and then again watching the videos. We even had one of the young men come in at the end and want to participate also. We promised that all videos would be deleted afterwards, so I have nothing to show you from the night.  It was silly and fun and a good night for everyone.

PPP Party: Purple Pictionary

Last night for mutual we had our PPP party we had a purple theme and played pictionary. We all wore purple clothes, and our YW president also made us purple princess cupcakes (a la Sofia the First). We only had 2 girls there, so we had a group discussion about personal progress. We challenged them to finish Integrity #4 by Sunday. It is a pretty simple goal and went along with our purple theme. It was a fun night. 

Sorry for missing the last few weeks. I have been out of town and sick so I haven't been to mutual in a while. But we just had our first planning meeting of the year and we have some fun activities coming up! I'll try to be better from now on. 

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.

Mall Scavenger Hunt

Last night for mutual we did a scavenger hunt at the mall. We split into 2 teams and were given a list of clues that led us to stores in the mall. You then had to take a picture of that store. It was a fun game. Unfortunately I don't have a list but some examples include: PAG corresponded to Gap, Apple Democratic corresponded to Banana Republic (this one threw us off because there was also an Apple store in the mall), Bullseye corresponded to Target, etc... It was fun to search and pass the other team in the mall. The girls in my group got a little disheartened when we saw the other group had finished as we were going to get our last 2 stores. But I told them not to give up, and it payed off. We got all the clues correct and the other team missed a few, so we were the winners and got first pick of donuts!

Our leader for the evening likened our scavenger hunt to reading the scriptures. Sometimes things in the scriptures might be confusing, but if we keep reading and searching and ponder on it, then it will make sense to us.

By Choice or Chance?

Last night for mutual we did an activity I called By Choice or Chance. The goal of the activity was to drive to the temple. But here's the twist: the car turned left, right or went straight based on the roll of a die. For our YW group, we split into two cars and saw who could get the closest. Since we live in the valley north of the Los Angeles temple, I decided that we should start down closer to it. We took the freeway down and once we got off on the exit to the street with the temple, we started rolling the die. I wrote a list out for both cars: 1 and 4 were left turns, 2 and 5 were right turns, and 3 and 6 were straight. It really doesn't matter which numbers you use. We had a few rules, like be safe (don't cut across traffic to make a turn at the next light), don't turn if the spirit tells you not to, and don't get back on the freeway. So whenever we came to a light or a stop sign we followed the directions on the die.

Our car ended up in a neighborhood a few miles away. Once we turned into the neighborhood we were stuck and just couldn't seem to get out. The other car said they stayed pretty close to the temple and passed it a few times, but just couldn't get the right number to turn into the parking lot.

After about 30 minutes of trying to get there, we called up the other car and we met up at the temple. We did a few activities at the visitors center and talked to the sister missionaries there. I meant to have treats there at the temple grounds, but I was running behind and wasn't able to pick anything up beforehand. So instead we had treats that I had someone else pick up for me back at the church building. There we discussed how the YW need to make the choice now to have the temple as their ultimate goal. They won't be able to go if they don't stay on the right path. Turning off the path can get you trapped in a neighborhood that is hard to get out of. Sometimes you come close to the temple but close doesn't cut it. There are lots of parallels to draw from this activity.

The girls had a lot of fun (at least we did in our car). They were getting so frustrated and realized within a few minutes how hard this was going to be. I think and hope that it made an impression on the young women. Getting sealed to my husband in the temple has been the greatest joy and blessing in my life and I am always grateful to know that our family will be together forever.

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

Game night again

What we did for mutual last night was have a game night...again. Originally we had planned on having a modest fashion show and combining this with another ward, but we were too slow in our planning and it didn't pan out. So we opted for game night again. I didn't attend since I was pretty jet lagged. But the girls must have had fun last week since they got to play games again last night.

Mormon Taboo

What we did for mutual last night was play Mormon Taboo, which we downloaded from Burlap and Denim. I am actually on vacation, so I wasn't able to attend, but I wish I could have because I love taboo! It's such a fun game, and I hope the girls had fun.

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