Changes

I knew this year would be the year of change and so far it hasn't disappointed. This last Sunday I was released from YW. I've been in a little over 5 1/2 years (6 girl's camps) so I knew it was only a matter of time. I'll miss the girls but I'm excited for whatever the Lord has next for me. I get so excited about what the future holds because I've never had all my nights free. Before I was in YW, I would teach dance or had night classes so my brain is just running wild with all the things I could do to fill up my time.

I'm also so ecstatic about the women they called to take our place. They are all amazing women and I have no doubt they will be amazing. I know that I built amazing friendships with the girls and love all of them so I'm not worried about keeping in touch with them and see them grow up.

Since I won't be at YW anymore I was going to post about this change Sunday but I had to take one last chance to put up photos of the girls since I know they love it so much. ;)

I tried to find photos that I was in so I wasn't just embarrassing the girls. This photo makes me laugh. We were canoeing on the Jordan River and it looks all innocent but I think I'd just gotten done threatening the girls with their life if they tipped the canoe. I remember that I told them how many bodies are pulled out of the Jordan River and I didn't want to fall out then trip on a dead body under the water. Yeah not one of my finest moments but hey I didn't get wet and the girls were terrified. Can't forget camp where we had our 'eye candy.'

One of the fun things serving in YW was getting to see people in our ward's hidden talents. I really got to know the widows in our ward and people I would have never known had we not involved them in our activities. At this one I got to see the amazing skater my sister-in-law Kirsten is.

My cute Beehive class last summer with Kimmy.

I got to camp at gorgeous places. Beehives here is a preview of how pretty Heber Valley is.

I got to hang out with the weird YM too.

I could act as goofy as the girls. Also I feel like I more than made up for my years in YW when I never got to go because I took dance.

Yeah I might need to go into hiding for posting this next picture.

When I first got put in YW we had a very small group of girls but we still had tons of fun.

Serving in YW I also got to work with a lot of amazing women. Looking over the photos there are a lot of them that have moved away that I miss so much. I'm going to miss hanging out with the leaders as much as the girls. Also have to point out cute Brek is preggo in this picture. She'll just love seeing this photo. Hee!

Wow looking at those photos I used to be skinny. So I guess the only advice I can give to the new leaders (if they blog stalk me) is YW makes you fat. I'm not sure if it's that or my love affair with french fries. Hee!

Also I want to just pass on my two favorite sites that I would use all the time for YW.

SugarDoodle - has answers to everything from activities, pp, lesson ideas, etc.

Shanna Vineyard - makes the cutest handouts ever and I've used her ideas several times.

Peace out girls!

New Beginnings

This year for New Beginnings we wanted to give the girls lots of ideas for the Personal Progress (PP) projects because when YW in Excellence comes around we never have projects to showcase. Even though we did this for New Beginnings it would work well as just a regular activity. We did the usual stuff you do at New Beginnings then we gave them a cover sheet to a booklet that has hundreds of ideas for PP projects. I don't have a photo of the booklet but I have the file in .pdf format. That booklet is seriously what took forever in planning this activity. I searched the web for projects, compiled them, sorted by each value and then weeded out the duplicates. Time consuming but now all the work is done for you. I'd attach the file to the blog but not sure how to do that. Just leave your email if I don't have it and I'll forward it to you.

Here was the candy buffet that turned more into the junk food buffet. I've wanted to create one of these for the longest time. The girls and dads loved this. Brittany and her mom were lifesavers and set it all up for me so I could work on setting up my rooms. They were the best and I didn't have to worry about a thing.

I collected food for each color of the YW values.

I get to work with the most amazing women in young women. They were so nice when I came up with this idea and knew it would take a lot of work from every one and there wasn't a single complaint. Each leader took a value and they were in charge of decorating a room containing items that value color and displaying value projects for that value. Then as the girls rotated to each room they would get the page for their booklet that was that value color and contained the project ideas. The leader would be in that room and just explain what that value means and give ideas for some of the projects.

I had two rooms - knowledge and divine nature. Knowledge was really easy and I had tons of projects to show for that one.

Then since I couldn't be in two places at once I quickly recorded my message for divine nature and ran that on the laptop for the girls to watch when they got to that room. Divine nature was a little harder to come up with projects. I made a cute bird garland that I didn't get a good picture of.

Here was the Good Works room that Maureen did. She went all out and this is just half of her room decorated. Our church is really old and her room just worked perfect because it has those 70s yellow accordion doors in there that just matched her value perfectly.

Nan our brand new secretary had the value virtue. I was amazed with what she came up with since she just got thrown into YW and I'm sure isn't used to my craziness yet.

We also passed out sheets for the girls to fill out for a project they would work on this year. We are still working on collecting them. It had the goal broken out in steps so we can help motivate and encourage that YW during the year to work on her project and she'll have something to display in November.

YW - Value Jar

In Young Womens we've been trying to encourage the girls to work on their Personal Progress. I found the idea of the value jar online and it's been working really well. Each month I make a treat that is the color of one of the values, if a girl has completed an experience she gets a treat. Here is one I did for knowledge - I just filled a baggie with green candy and then made a topper for it. I've also done candles, hair ties, and pens. We bring the jar out the 1st and 3rd Sundays when we all meet together for our lesson. Just thought I'd pass the idea along.