Young Women In Excellence

Whew! It took me some time to recover from Young Women In Excellence. I literally took to my bed yesterday because I was so worn out. I am starting to realize just how much my youth leaders loved me. I regret not recognizing all their hard work back in the day...

The Theme

We have some newly baptized or reactivated young women, so we decided to go a different direction with our program. We wanted ALL the girls to be recognized, since many haven't yet reached Personal Progress goals. Our focus was "Finding The Treasure Within" which begged a pirate theme - arrrrrrg!

The Invitations

I made the invites to look like a message in a bottle. Michael's had the cutest little corked bottles for $.99. (Of course I used a coupon and got that discounted. :) I printed the following little poem in Blackladder font on "antiqued" paper:

All Hands on Deck!

Thar be smooth sailing and fair winds blowing

When to Young Women In Excellence ye be rowing.

Chart yer course fer the Relief Society Room

To find treasure greater than gold dubloons.

Drop yer ship's anchor at the dock,

On November 20th by 7 o'clock

Fair damsels - be wearin' yer Sunday best

And bring yer folks and yer special guests.

The Program

Look at this cute little pirate girl I found on the internet! We colored her up in Microsoft Paint, and used her for the cover of our program. (Word to the wise...be careful looking for "cute pirate girl" images on the Internet).

The Music

My dear friend Angie se the tone for the whole night when she performed "Look Inside" by Jule S. Anderson and Dennis L. Crocket. It's from an old collection called "A Song of the Heart".  Here are the lyrics:

Look inside yourself and you will find
A love that reaches out to all mankind,
Free and pure as morning's gentle breeze.
Oh, let it flow.
Oh, let it go.
When you were a child, so willing to give
To any who'd take your hand.
You said as a child, for as long as you live,
You'd take love to ev'ry land.
As you grew, your eyes were opened to
All the grief and the suff'ring of man.
So now, what can be done to make us as one
As was in the Master's plan?
Look inside yourself and you will find
A love that reaches out to all mankind,
Warm and sweet and gold as autumn sun.
Oh, let it flow.
Oh, let it go.
Remember the teaching He gave unto you

To love as you love your own.

Place no man above another in love

For no one must be alone.

We are diff'rent. It's meant to be that way.

Share your love with ev'ry one.
And your joy will abound
In the new world you've found.
You will see what your good works have done.
Look inside yourself and you will find
A love that reaches out to all mankind,
Growing, never ending, as a stream.
Oh, let it flow.
Oh, let it grow.
Oh, let it go.

In closing, the Young Women Crew sang The Treasure Within by Sally Stewart Kinnaird and Joan Sowards. Here are the lyrics:

Just look for the treasure within
The treasure that came at your birth.
It cannot be purchased with diamonds or gold,
There's no end to it's infinite worth.
Seek riches that won't fade away,
Far greater than fortunes of men.
The wealth of your values Forever remain,
So build on the treasures within.

Values Treasure Hunt

We wanted the girls to better understand the values and the colors associated with them. I made up a treasure hunt that took them around the building in search of value colored gems that they put in little mini treasure boxes. Every time they found a gem, they also learned about the value and its corresponding color. Can you figure out where to go from my clues below?

Shhh! Special doors seem to say to you.

A Primary song will help with this clue.

If pens or scriptures you forgot,

You may borrow it from this spot.

If ten percent you’d like to give,

You’ll need something from where I live.

The keys that help the Primary sing

Will help unlock your desired thing.

Where moms take babies to rock and sing,

You'll find one more gem to add to your bling.

Where the smallest of children play every week,

Look by the window to find what you seek.

Don’t go far, you’ll see me soon.

I’m sitting in the Young Women’s room.

Check all the doors – Quick! Look inside!

In with the cleaners and vacuums I hide.

This was the station where they found objects associated with faith (mustard seeds, a statue of Christ, etc.)

A brief description of why the color white reminds us of faith.

 

A brief description of why the color green reminds us of knowledge.

If it didn't take so stinkin' long to upload a picture, I'd put the rest of the stations on here. You get the idea though...

Slide Show

Once the girls and their parents returned from the values treasure hunt, I presented a Power Point about their hidden talents/spiritual gifts. Their parents supplied me with the intel and I took a bunch of goofy pictures. Here are a few of my favorites:

Catherine

Vanessa

Esther

The Outfits

As the girls were recognized in the slide show, we had them come up and put on the colors of the values they exemplified. Our ensembles had a pirate-y twist:

The Crew

The Presidency

Food and Decorations

Our YW President is amazing. She has a real eye for decorating and can really run with a theme.
We had lots of beachy items, treasure chests, jewels, netting, etc. all over the room. For a weeknight activity we had the girls create a big pirate ship scene which Emma finished outlining and coloring. The other members of the presidency made sand dollar cookies, pirate fingers, etc. for refreshments. It was sooooo cute!

Now to start thinking about New Beginnings....





P.S. I would add more pictures, but blogger is giving me fits. If you can explain to this tech dummy how to make the uploading process faster, please message me.