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.

Indexing again

Last night for mutual we did some indexing. We knew that 2 (half) of our girls would be gone (one of them is getting her patriarchal blessing, yay!), so we kept it small. The other 2 girls are fairly new to our young women, so we decided to teach them how to index. We had to sign one girl up for an account, and then we set to work. I just brought my laptop to the church and signed them into the software. They shared a batch of British names. When they were done one girl, who is pretty sarcastic, told us that was fun, and we laughed a little. But then she said "No, that really was kind of fun." Indexing really is a fun activity.

We also did some more planning for our YWIE night coming up. We are getting set to send out invitations, including to some sisters in the ward who we feel exemplify certain of the YW values. I'm excited to see how it turns out.

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.