Young Women in Excellence

On December 4th we celebrated, "Young Women in Excellence." It's a night where the girls ages 12-17 in my ward share with us some of the goals they accomplished throughout the year. I was in charge of it this year and I really felt like I had no clue if I was planning it right, but I think it turned out cute. The theme I chose was, "Becoming Spiritually Fit." I was really listening to October General Conference with the hope of finding a theme in mind. This talk by Richard J. Maynes really stuck out to me and is where my theme originated from.

The invite:

The refreshment table:

We tried to do a mostly healthy theme. Veggie tray, hummus and chips, smoothie drinks, fruit kabobs, personal fruit pizzas and water.

Blurry pic. My camera was being so weird:

The main decor table:

I made tissue pom-poms out of every Personal Progress value and placed them in front of pages I downloaded and framed about each value. Our Young Women's president made the cute glittered frames and we displayed a picture of each girl and the value she talked about in front of the value. I was able to take most of the girls' pictures near the new Gilbert temple.

It was kind of hard because the girls came in two cars and the first carload the lighting was a lot better but I'm still satisfied with what I got.

For the program, I first introduced the theme and gave a short talk. Then I had each girl talk on a certain Personal Progress value and how accomplishing goals in that value area had helped them become more, "spiritually fit." The Bishop also talked about the importance of becoming spiritually fit and how the temple helps us do that and blesses us. It was a quick, uplifting night. Just the way I like it. (I get ADD in long meetings).

Oh, I forgot. The exercise sweat band colors matched the value they spoke on as well. We had a couple new beehives that I assigned to do the opening and closing prayer :). 

     I originally tried copying an idea of Pinterest, but it was clear that the Lord wanted me to use my own brain instead. I am grateful I had the opportunity to study the talk by Elder Maynes and to think about how important it is to continually nourish and take care of our testimonies, just like it is important to take care of our bodies. The Church is true! I love it and I  love working with these girls.