Young Women in Excellence

My calling at church is Personal Progress leader.  I've talked about it on the blog before, but you can learn about it more here: https://www.lds.org/young-women/personal-progress?lang=eng.

Every Fall, the Young Women have a special program where they can showcase the different Value Projects they've worked on throughout the year.  Since this is my area, I was in charge of our ward's program, called Young Women in Excellence.

There are soo many fun or spiritual ways you can go with YW in Excellence.  Our evening was titled "Our Treasure in Christ," going along the year's Mutual theme, "Come Unto Christ."  I wanted to have the program be focused on women from the scriptures, who provided righteous examples of being disciples of Christ, through trials and hardships they faced.  They treasured their relationship with Christ, and they knew that they, in turn, were "treasured" by Him.

I asked our Stake YW President to speak, and she did an excellent job delving into the theme of the evening, and also talking about things of value that we should treasure.  She brought her own treasure box, and pulled out several items she "treasures," such as her scriptures, her journal, a picture of her family, etc.

I had asked 8 of the young women to portray women from the scriptures that night, who each represented one of the 8 young women values.  They were to come dressed as that woman, and they each had a part to read about themselves (as the woman).  I thought they did fabulous!

We only had two musical performances (others were asked, but couldn't make it).  Two talented singer-sisters sang "The Olive Tree," and at the end all of the young women sang "Our Savior's Love."

The Bishop closed the program with a great talk about specific women in the scriptures.  Then everyone got to dive into the impressive refreshments (the sister in charge of food totally out-did herself!), and walk around the displays.

 I set up a table to display pictures and names of the women that the girls represented.  I loved how they turned out, and thought it was so helpful to be able to visualize them, so we could better get to know them.

 I had an idea to have each young woman write their testimony, and include it on a page with their picture.  The YW president helped put my idea into action, and assisted the girls in making lovely "testimony pages" with scrapbooking supplies, then hung it up for everyone to read.

 I put one of the counselors in charge of value table decorations.  She came up with this lovely idea to have a framed picture of the name of the value, and a coordinating flower.  The girls placed the projects they've done or the activities they've participated in on the tables.  I interview the girls periodically and hear about these things they've been involved in.  It was fun to actually get a better picture of it, too!

 For gifts for the girls, I made these wood blocks with a picture of Christ.  I'd never made anything like that before, never even modpodged before!  Crazy, right?  It was definitely a good learning experience (and I definitely should have started much earlier).  They weren't perfect, and I'm sure the yw had no idea what hard work and love went into everything I did for this night, but I hope they will enjoy having these pictures.

The little gift boxes held a charm bracelet for the girls.  The charms represent each of the 8 values.  The girls will receive a charm for every value they complete.  Those who've finished all of Personal Progress received the entire charm bracelet.

All in all, I think it was a successful night!  A ton of work, but I learned a lot along the way, and hopefully if I'm ever in charge of something like this again, I'll feel a little more confident!