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.

revised young women theme for 2020

with great excitement at the beginning of this month, i read the new and revised young womens theme online in the days following general conference. there are many changes ahead as the new youth program is introduced over the coming months as 2020 begins.

the young womens theme has always been a huge thing to us girls. we recite it at the beginning of each class and it's something we all know and think about. i have grown up reciting one thing, which was changed slightly and confused the heck out of me when i was called to serve in young womens as an adult... (i was in the days before "and virtue" and "be prepared to strengthen home and family" were added to the older one) but that one little change, has now changed completely - and i love it! the words of the the new theme are just gorgeous.

"I am a beloved daughter of heavenly parents, with a divine nature and eternal destiny. As a disciple of Jesus Christ, I strive to become like Him. I seek and act upon personal revelation and minister to others in His holy name. I will stand as a witness of God at all times and in all things and in all places. As I strive to qualify for exaltation, I cherish the gift of repentance and seek to improve each day. With faith, I will strengthen my home and family, make and keep sacred covenants, and receive the ordinances and blessings of the holy temple. "

i especially love the part that says "i cherish the gift of repentance and seek to improve each day." why? because we are not perfect! no one expects us to be... and we need to try each and every day to be better - so i am glad that's the message we are giving our youth.

thanks to one of the talented women on the young womens leaders facebook page (my apologies, i cannot find her post to credit her by name here), we were able to get this nicely set up page, which we have printed and framed for each of our girls to encourage them to learn the theme quickly. i feel really lucky to be serving in young womens and am glad to have these girls and their lovely families around me. i am excited for the new youth program beginning next year and the possibilities it holds!

young women’s personal progress

i actually cannot believe this day has come. i finally completed my young women personal progress. only 17 years too late, but i finished. when i was in young womens all those years ago i made a pretty good effort initially, then decided it really wasn't that important and it got pushed to the side for other less important things.

at the end of last year - it was announced that a new youth program would be introduced in 2020 and that personal progress would be discontinued at the end of 2019. so what happened next? i got fomo and decided that i needed to get it done before the cut off. now. cramming what is meant to take 6 years into one year? a lot to do. when you decide in july you want to do it all? even crazier. but i decided i would get it done - and got to work.

i found an amazing website dedicated to completing it all in a twelve week period, so i followed that and oh was it a blessing. all the readings, the book of mormon broken up into sections to know how much to read each week and even suggestions for how to complete each task and what you might like to make as your goals. someone give this girl a medal!

so, i got it done. even my 10 hour projects! thankfully as a leader you only have to complete three value projects, including the one for virtue - but i did five! so proud, let me have this.

for faith i grew a strawberry garden in the backyard. for divine nature, i stitched a sampler of the scripture d&c 88:119 for a friends future home, to give as a wedding gift. here's a pic! took me ages, but i think the final product looked amazing!

knowledge had me learning about the proper care, repairing and altering of clothing. i had worked on this a lot over time, so i focused on doing it better and doing it for others. good works was nice for my family. many home cooked meals, some new recipes - to ensure i'm going to be a good homemaker one day. haha. and finally - virtue - to read the entire book of mormon. i have done this many times, but it was nice to complete that along with this program.

i am just so proud to have done it! i made sure to print all my journal and put it in a display folder, and said to my mother - "this this is for madeline. so that one day when she comes to me and says something is too hard and she doesn't want to do it, i will show her this folder and tell her, i did this! with 3 small children! and you can do much harder things than this!" hopefully it works haha.

now onto my honour bee! i have just enough time to get that done too, so here we gooooooo!