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. 

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.

Random Acts of Kindness

Last night for mutual we did some random acts of kindness. We have been meaning to do a service project with the girls for a while now, but all of our plans for big projects kept getting ruined somehow. So we decided to have a night of small acts of service. We were inspired by this lovely blog and used the great printables found there. The printable came out black and white, sow e let the girls color them before we headed out. We asked the girls to bring any spare change they had, and our president traded them for quarters. We also had all the girls write a note to bring to school tomorrow thanking their favorite teacher. It could be anonymous or not, we let them choose.

First, we headed to our local grocery store and put away a bunch of carts that were scattered around the parking lot. We also left some money on the vending machines and the redbox machine at the store with notes tagged to them.

Next, we headed over to our local hospital. We handed out a few full size candy bars to some people working and waiting there with notes taped to them. This was a great lesson in social skills also. We had some girls too shy to hand them to people, and some girls who said kind of weird things. Hopefully they learned a thing or two by the example of the others in the group. We also went to the cafeteria vending machines at the hospital and taped more quarters to those. Fortunately, since it was night time, the cafeteria was empty and we could do our work in secret. Unfortunately, hospital vending machines are expensive! Here are some pictures of the girls taping quarters.

I asked the girls how they felt afterward and they all said they felt really good. They liked the high of helping someone, and doing it in secret makes it even better. This was an awesome service project for us!

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. 

Stake Youth Halloween party

Last night for mutual (which was Wednesday instead of Tuesday) our Stake Youth leaders put on a party for the youth. Our ward building was chosen this year to host the party. We just had to open up the building for them and they did the rest: food, decorating, everything. The theme this year was a harvest festival, so they encouraged everyone to wear their best western clothes, we had chili and hot dogs, and they brought in a square dance caller to lead the music. Even though this event usually includes dancing, all the youth, even the 12 and 13 year olds, were invited (usually dances are reserved for youth 14 and up). The stake did a great job and everything turned out wonderfully. I think some of the youth were disappointed that they didn't get to wear their Halloween costumes or get to dance to pop music, but overall I think everyone ended up having a good time.

One of our young women turned 16 this week! So at the dance we passed around a little notebook and had some adults write in their favorite dating advice. At the end of the night we made a special announcement introducing the newest eligible young lady in our stake. Our lovely YW president put together a little basket full of orange goodies to give to her with a sign reading "Orange you glad you're 16?" (similar to this). It was really cute.

Party Planning

Last night for mutual we did some party planning. We sort of volunteered our YW group to be in charge of the ward Halloween party this year. This is always a big party with great turnout for our ward, so I think it's important that it does get put on, and since no one else seemed to be stepping up to take charge, we did just that. We decided this would count as a service project :)  So last night we figured out everything we would need food wise and entertainment wise and made assignments. It sounds like its going to be a lot of fun, and hopefully all the girls will do wonderfully at the things they are assigned (running games and decorating). We will also be doing an encore performance of our One Act Play since a lot of the ward wasn't able to make it to the original performance. The girls are excited about that. I'll let you know how it turns out!

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.