look to the temple: young womens in excellence

we had our ward young womens in excellence this evening. we organised it to have a "look to the temple theme and i think it went really well.

we set up with all white, with our three temple dresses on display, books about the temple and statues of christ - along with a photograph each from our temple weddings, from each member of our young womens presidency.

at the end of the evening, we gave each of the girls a gift, a white wooden hanger, engraved with their name and this poem attached

 (file is at the bottom if you ever want to use it for an activity of your own!)

hang onto your values

hang on to your testimony

hang on to your goals

so that someday, you can hang your temple dress on me. 

along with one of these gorgeous cookies of the temple that my friend did up. i love that she got the moroni's perfect, they are incredible. i almost didn't want to give them away.

our presidency members temple wedding pictures. i loved seeing them all on display together - such a wonderful example for the girls to be reaching towards the goal of a temple marriage.

we had simple refreshments afterwards, just enough for some nibbles... i really tried to make most of it white as well but its a bit hard!

egg sandwiches

white tim-tams

white chocolate dipped strawberries

vanilla cupcakes with white icing

watermelon pieces

white chocolate rocky road

spinach and ricotta puffs

and water and lemonade to drink

and our evening went a little something like this:

opening song: i love to see the temple

opening prayer

opening and welcome to yw and special guests 

(we asked for a few helpers to make the evening just right)

tonight is about learning about the importance of making and keeping sacred covenants to receive the ordinances and blessings of the holy temple as mentioned in the young women’s theme

recitation of the new yw theme

speakers:

-a sister in our ward who is a temple worker

-a recent convert who had just gone through the temple weeks before

-the oldest of our young women, who spoke about preparing to enter the temple

video - the blessings of the temple

speakers:

-our first counsellor (preparing for a temple marriage)

-second counsellor (me!) (temple blessings in motherhood)

-our president (blessings of the temple on your mission)

-our stake young womens president 

-our bishop

closing remarks: our young womens president

closing hymn: families can be together forever 

closing prayer

************************

it went off without a hitch other than our crack up of a bishop. he had prepared some words, unrelated to the temple and said he had no idea it was about the temple, even after being handed an invite and being asked to speak in a message with a specified subject. he and his wife do share their messenger account though, so we think she must have been the one who read that. we had a good laugh about it though.

everyone that spoke said such wonderful words and i was so glad that we felt inspired to ask each one. it was a perfect night - the perfect end to our year with the girls.