You Need 2 Check this Idea Out!!!

Photo belongs to http://inkablinka.com

I just had to share this wonderful idea that Kristin from Inkablinka came up with as a weekly reward for their wards young women for working on their personal progress. I love that it goes with the mutual theme for the year!  

You NEED to check this idea out by clicking HERE! To cute and super easy to make! Will definitely be sharing this idea with our YW president at our next presidency meeting. 

Sister Dalton Talks to YW

I must be in a video sharing sort of mood because here is another video that I just love!!!

Click HERE for more information

I Am A Daughter of My Heavenly Father...Who KNOWS Me

I think that every Young Woman (young and old) and even the Young Men need a good reminder that their Heavenly Father knows them and loves and will never leave them in their hour/time of need. A very touching reminder and message. 
Click HERE for link to share or get more information

How Much Do We Really Know?

I love history and I love to learn about different organizations in the church and how they came about. 

Photo taken from HERE

I think this would be an awesome mutual activity/game to have during mutual...Stay tune for an updated post with a trivia game all about the history of the Young Women's organization. Click HERE to be taken directly to the lds.org page.

Our Individual Worth

This handout/bookmark goes with lesson 39 from Young Women Manual 3-Recognizing our Individual Worth.  I used a quote from Sister Dalton's talk "Remember Who You Are! which can be found HERE. I loved this talk when I heard her give it in the 2010 YW General Meeting. 

So this is a double sided bookmark (one side has the quote the other side is just the plain red paper that way if you cut it out and laminate it and not mount it on to any other paper, you will at least have a back (just print page one first and then page 2 so that it is back to back). I think it would be really cute if you punched a hole at the top and inserted a ribbon or some sort to tag. This quote is a great reminder that we are someone special and that our Heavenly Father does love us. 

Click HERE for download (3 to a page)

Paper and element credit goes to Steadfast and Immovable (link in lower left side bar) from their Individual Worth/Celestial Values kit.

A Good Reminder

I know this video isn't new and I am sure we have all seen it when we watched the YW General Broadcast for this year but I wanted to share it with you...just as a reminder of the duty we have.

Click HERE for more information and sharing options.

PPW...a day late!!!

Sorry that I missed yesterday...it was crazy!! If you have been following this blog then you would know we had our YWIE last night and I spent most or rather a good chunk of the last two days (maybe 3) preparing for it. Which I will blog about in a different post. 
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I finished my Book of Mormon reading yesterday (Wednesday 11/2) at 2:30 pm. It was a bit of a challenge at times but it really was a worth while experience. I did learn a lot, not only about the people in the BOM but also about myself. 
I learned that the Lord does really look out for those that are faithful to his commandments and that follows his example. I have learned that greed and power are easy ways for Satan to take hold of our hearts. I learned that through true repentance that we can be saved and that if we have enough faith and are righteous that the Lord will bless us with what we need. 

I mentioned a while back about parable of the olive tree that was taken from the bible but can be found in Jacob chapter 5. As a leader of our ward's YW, I found this particular story to hit home. I learned that as a leader I am the person who tends the garden. It is my job to help see that the trees grow to the best of their ability. That they bring forth much fruit that they are capable of. I learned that each of my girls that I am asked to lead are a tree and there are those who are active (the good productive trees) and those who might be less active (the trees that produce but not as much as they could) and then there are girls who have been planted in bad soil and not tended and they are in a way "dead." As a leader it is my job to help those girls who are struggling to be the best of who they were meant to be, to reach out and graft together their branches with those of the gospel. To help their testimony grow and to let them know that they are of worth and they are Princesses and future Queens, that they have a father in heaven who loves them. 
It sounded better in my head 2 weeks ago but this is part of the things that I learned. It truly is a true book and another testament of the savior. He really does love us and knows us and wants us to be eternally happy not only here on this earth but in the life to come. I know that the teachings the book holds are true and that they are just as relevant today (if not more) as they were in the day that they were written. I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God who was called to bring back the restoration of the Lord's church on the earth today. I know that President Monson is a true prophet that he has been called to lead the church today. I know that we are  also capable of receiving personal revelation if we have the faith and are righteous enough to receive it. We have the power to be examples of Christ and to bring others back to the fold. We might not all be called as missionaries to go to various places in the world but we can be missionaries here in our own ways. Whether it is by being called as a teacher or even if it is just leading by example. If we live the way we should we will allow others to want to know Christ as well. 
As for the rest of my personal progress goals, I did achieve my goal and earn my gold ribbon for virtue and my green ribbon for knowledge. My other two value projects are completed, I just need to finish the experiences to go with them. I still haven't finished my faith requirements that I have been working on...I got lazy and busy...oh ok...I got LAZY and put them off. I am going to set another goal to have earned my YW medallion before our New Beginnings (which I think is in Feb/March) so I will be looking at my goals and start completing them. 
How is your personal progress coming along? I would love to hear about your achievements (or lack of...if your like me sometimes) or any ideas that you might have or are doing currently to get your YW to work on Personal Progress. 

Subway Art...YW Values

I tried my hand at creating a piece of Subway Art...

I used Picnik to create it. Click HERE for download jpeg or you can right click on the image above and save as.

I Am In LOVE....

with the new album that Deseret Book just released that is based on the Young Women Values its titled Live What I know:Honoring the Values of Young Women. 

Crappy Picture I Know...sorry

There is also a songbook that goes with it...however when I  went to pick it up (I pre-ordered both the CD and Songbook) from the local Deseret Book they said that they were still waiting for the books to be shipped our from the warehouse. So I settled with just walking out of the store with the disc and will have to wait a few weeks before I can pick up the book too....*frown face*

But I LOVE what I heard on the disc and it has made me super duper excited for the book to come in so I can play the songs and who knows, maybe get some of my YW to sing them. So I HIGHLY recommend getting this...it has the same spiritual "umph" that Janice Kapp Perry had with her album about the values (which is still amazing and the one I grew up with and still love to this day) but this one is made especially for the generation that we as leaders today are teaching. GO PICK IT UP--what are you waiting for???

Personal Progress Helper....

We just had our PP fondu night...what better way to get your young women together to work on personal progress than by offering food!

Just to tell you what our night was, before getting into the reason behind this post, we had two different kinds of chocolate (dark/milk and white) and then we had a variety of foods that went with the colors of the YW Values (marshmallows for faith, blue gummy sharks for DN, strawberries and swedish fish for IW, granny smith apples for knowledge, yellow gumdrops for good works, orange slices for c&a, the leader who had purple wasnt there but you could use grapes or something, and then pretzels for virtue). We also had pp interviews with each of the girls (one on one) while the rest worked on their individual pp. We provide journal sheets, scriptures, magazines for the girls to use. It was great.

So moving on. I was searching all over the net for some ideas on how to encourage the girls to do pp. I saw that a lot of wards/leaders have the same problem, either the girls don't care for the pp program or they dont have time. I was one My Place for YW Stuff and saw this great idea. It was a spread sheet that laid out all the value experiences and how long you need to complete them. I recreated it using excel and then pasting it into word 2007 doc (I was trying to get it so I could get more than one on a sheet...yeah...I failed) but I also wanted to redo it because the original was so dark in color (and you really need to have it in color to work) that to print a ton of them out would go through a lot of ink so I lightened the colors up a bit.

Here is a picture, click HERE to download the word docx.

2nd Handout for Lesson 21...

So I finally was able to create something that I am satisfied with. I have spent the last two days trying to get this handout right...and by golly I finally did it!!! *Happy Dance*

So I know I wont get the finished pictures up until I get these put together which will be tomorrow but here is what I plan on doing with them. I have little votive candles in a variety of colors and scents that I got at wal-mart for like $2.00 if that and they came in a set of 4. Score for me! So now that I found the candles, I thought to myself how and I going to get a tag attached that the girls will actually keep on the candle. The light went off (it does that occasionally) and so I picked up some smaller size treat bags by Wilton (again walmart for like a $1.50). I got them home and ta-da! The bags don't exactly lend themselves well to being gathered and tied. SO this is when I came up with this crazy idea to create a bag topper.

So here it is...another pdf with four to a page

Click HERE for download

Paper Bag Princess

I wish I could take credit for this activity idea....but I can't. It was borrowed from an idea suggested from Sugardoodle (you can click HERE to see it) but with some little adjustments made to it.

To start off the night we had a photographer come in (lucky enough our YW secretary and her hubby are photographers and were so willing to take our pictures) and photographed each girl with a tiara/crown. The girls were already excited by this point.

We popped popcorn (which I kinda burned because the church's microwave was unfamiliar territory to me) and had the girls gather round in a semi circle and my Beehive advisor read to them the story of The Parable of the Princesses by Jenny Philips. While she was reading this, I was in the back printing out all of the girls photos (if you do not have access to a photo printer...I would suggest that you take the pictures ahead of time, before the activity, and have them already printed and ready to go).

Next, I read to the girls the story of the Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch. Then we asked them questions about the qualities that these princesses had and which of those qualities are ones that the girls wanted to develop.  Next we helped the girls by getting their Paper Bag Time Capsule put together. We just downloaded the attachments that were on Sugardoodle for this activity because I didn't have time to create other ones, because it was literally put together hours before. We had the girls write down the qualities they wanted to have developed by the time they were married and what qualities they want their future husbands to have.

Then then wrote a letter to their future prince. Once these letters were finished they folded them up and put them into their paper bags along with a picture of a temple and the photo of them wearing the tiara. Once everything was in their bag, we sealed them up and told the girls they were to open them on the night of their engagement.

The girls seemed to have fun with this and it looked as if they put some real thought in the qualities that they wanted both in them selves and their future spouse. It was a great night!

A Rainbow of Values

I saw this idea at Curly's Creations  that someone had posted and I LOVED it. Its pretty much the same as what was posted there, but instead of putting the ribbons on the handle, I decided that I would tie them around the rim of the basket.

You Will Need:

1 white wire basket (found at Dollar Tree)

Ribbon in the colors of the YW Values

Scissors

All you do is cut ribbon in about 3 inch stips (or what ever size will work for you and your basket) and tie the ribbons to the basket.  For mine, I tied 2 ribbons in one hole.

(close up)

This idea is perfect to hold any handouts for lessons or a place to hold cell phones (if you have that problem) or treats. The possibilities are endless!!!