RS Christmas Program

For the first Sunday in December, the Relief Society Presidency wanted to give some sort of program to welcome in the Christmas spirit.  I found this program by Judith Hoopes Hamilton: The Women Who Knew Jesus and added they hymns in between each part.  It was a very touching program!

Young Women in Excellence

I attended the Young Women in Excellence program our ward put on at the first of November and thoroughly enjoyed it.  They made these cute scrolls for centerpieces and placed an LED light inside some tulle in an upside down bowl:

 My husband has AMAZING handwriting and did this for them on a piece of fabric.  Underneath they had made plaques for each of the girls with their names on them, a poem and a picture.

 In the back of the room they had the girls projects on display.  For the tables, they taped icicle lights to the tables and then placed tablecloths over them.  The pictures do no justice, take my word for it they looked great!

Christmas Programs

It is hard to believe that Christmas is just over a month away.  I do like to wait for the day after Thanksgiving before decorating or starting playing music, but in preparation for the Christmas season, I remembered the program I compiled for a sacrament meeting program.
Here is the program.  I used the LDS hymn book for some of the songs and the Silent Night music from Sally Deford.

Warning, this post is interactive!

Artwork by James Christensen

I was asked to share some of my Christmas traditions at our next Relief Society evening and it got me thinking about the many traditions from growing up as well as the new traditions of having my own family. What are your favorite (and least favorite) holiday traditions?

Spa Night

Tonight at mutual (my last night=so sad!!! ) there was a spa night for the beehives. We had a great time! My pictures aren't the best quality, but still capture the essence of the evening. Shannon made these cute water bottles for everyone:

The girls started out with facials, then we gave them hand/arm massages and then they moved on to manicures.

Spa Night - slideshow dvd

The last 15 or so minutes the girls spend meditating. A great time was had by all and all of the Beehives were there, plus two friends!

YW-3-35: Dating Decisions

I stole the cake idea from Mary K. Mullen and the girls LOVED when I revealed what was in the box.  I had offered them M&M's and they thought about it for quite a while, but all decided to go for "the box."

I took Little Miss Suzy Q's idea from here and tweaked it to add a summary of the FTSOY Pamphlet to the back like so:

Here is the handout (print two sided): (PDF)

It turned out great.  Sadly, this was my last week in YW.  I had a great time in there and love the Beehives.  they are so sweet and were so good to me.  Today I was offically sustained and set apart as the Relief Society 1st Counselor.  Wish me luck!
I gave all of the girls a "thank you" note telling them how grateful I was for their friendship and helping me in my short 3 months in Beehives.  I also had picked up some pencils with this year's mutual them on them at our church bookstore so they received those today too.

YW-3-34: Avoiding Dishonesty

I'm having a hard time with how this lesson is put together.  I've had a few lessons this past year about honesty and it seems like no one can define honesty without saying what it's not.  Just tell me what it IS.  And I feel this lesson is all about the negativity.  "Avoiding Dishonesty" - isn't that a double negative?!  Ok, rant over.
So I do like how Angela Williams re-wrote the lesson (here), except for the last story I'm going to summarize Richard C. Edgley's 2006 General Conference talk like so:
"In 1955, after my freshman year of college, I spent the summer working at the newly opened Jackson Lake Lodge, located in Moran, Wyoming. …After the miracle of arriving home, my father came out and happily greeted me. After a hug and a few pleasantries, he looked into the backseat of the car and saw three Jackson Lake Lodge towels—the kind you cannot buy. With a disappointed look he merely said, “I expected more of you.” I hadn’t thought that what I had done was all that wrong. To me these towels were but a symbol of a full summer’s work at a luxury hotel, a rite of passage. Nevertheless, by taking them I felt I had lost the trust and confidence of my father, and I was devastated. The following weekend I…began the 370-mile (595-km) round trip back to Jackson Lake Lodge to return three towels. My father never asked why I was returning to the lodge, and I never explained. It just didn’t need to be said. This was an expensive and painful lesson on honesty that has stayed with me throughout my life. …Some 30 years ago, while working in the corporate world, some business associates and I were passing through O’Hare Airport in Chicago, Illinois. One of these men had just sold his company for tens of millions of dollars—in other words, he was not poor. As we were passing a newspaper vending machine, this individual put a quarter in the machine, opened the door to the stack of papers inside the machine, and began dispensing unpaid-for newspapers to each of us. When he handed me a newspaper, I put a quarter in the machine and, trying not to offend but to make a point, jokingly said, “Jim, for 25 cents I can maintain my integrity. A dollar, questionable, but 25 cents—no, not for 25 cents.” You see, I remembered well the experience of three towels and a broken-down 1941 Hudson. A few minutes later we passed the same newspaper vending machine. I noticed that Jim had broken away from our group and was stuffing quarters in the vending machine. I tell you this incident not to portray myself as an unusual example of honesty, but only to emphasize the lessons of three towels and a 25-cent newspaper." Time permitting, I'll be using this video: And using this handout by Katie Berrett:

YW-3-33: Each Person Is Divine and Eternal

I've decided that I try to put too many elements into my lessons.  The past 3 lessons, we've run out of time before I get to most of what I am wanting to do.  So for this lesson, I'm going to try to simplify it a bit.  I think this lesson is one of the most important there is and want to make sure the girls get it.
That said, I also feel this lesson is packed with guilt!  This question: "Knowing the worth of souls, would you want to make even one person feel that he or she was not of worth?" is what creates "Mormon guilt." 
Ok, tirade over.  Just wanted to put that out there.
So, I'm letting someone else do my handout work this week, thank you HolyHandouts.  Here's the handout:

Since I don't have many pairs of gloves, Phillip (my husband) suggested having the girls make gloves out of playdough (which we have plenty of).
The story at the end of the lesson seems pretty long and I think I might be replacing it with a video (visual works better than audio for our Beehives).  I'm thinking about the old seminary video with the girl who has to ask the "popular" girl to come to mutual.  We'll see, I have to find it and make sure it's not too long of course.  I'll post the details when I find it.
Discarded thoughts that might help you:  I had also thought of sharing the Sand Dollar story on the handout, but that whole simplifying thing got in the way... I'm sure there will be another opportunity.
I also liked this picture and thought about adding it to a handout:

(photo by Sarah Leen for National Geographic) taken from Beginnings New

Wow, lots of typing today.  Happy Saturday everyone and enjoy the RS broadcast tonight!

YW-3-32: Service in the Community

For the puzzle, I took a picture of our teapot and broke it up:

These will be attatched to a baggie of Mini Chips Ahoy: (altered from the idea Rachael Gordon left at Sugardoodle)

Here is the handout 4/page.
And finally, we will be taking Linda's idea, also from Sugardoodle, and tying a quilt during the lesson.
I think it will be fun, wish me luck!

Uploading Videos

For some of my lessons, I've found vidoes from different sources online (i.e. YouTube).  Unfortunatly my internet service doesn't work all the way to the church building so I had to find a way to download the video to show it to the girls. 
This is the program I use: Online Video Converter

YW-3-31: Service in the Church

This week's lesson tells a story about 2/3 of the way through about the three young men who went to help the pioneers in Wyoming.  Instead of reading the story, I will be playing the video of the talk from the Doctrine and Covenants and Church History DVD Presentations (segment 20, "Tried in All Things").

I used this quote from the end of the lesson for my handout:

Here is the handout: 6/page.

At the end of the lesson I will give the girls some journaling paper to write thank you notes to whomever they wish to thank them for their service in the church. 

Here is the paper: 4/page

UPDATED: 6 B's Bee

Since the girls are starting school this week, we are having a back to school pep rally for mutual (ideas stolen from here).
Tomorrow I am making cupcakes and putting this bee on them. I think they are going to turn out really cute and I'll post pictures when they are done.

I also blew up the picture and will be making a huge poster.
Here are the bees ready to cut out for the cupcakes.
UPDATE:
Here are some pictures from the event:
I printed the bee out in a smaller version and attatched them to tootpicks.

 Then I placed them in the yellow cupcakes with beehives on top and added some small bee stickers we had on hand.  They were very cute and very easy!

I just made yellow cake cupcakes and then made yellow jello frosting (1 package instant pudding mixed with 1-1/2 cups milk and then a container of cool whip).  I took my frosting applicator and skipped the tip.  I squirted some out until it made a big circle then made two smaller circles on top of that.
Then I made these pennants.  LHS stands for Living Higher Standards.  I had a hard time with these and still wasn't in love with the finished project, but the girls liked them and were excited to put them in their lockers.

YW-3-26: Repentance

I toyed with a handout about the ABC's of Repentance but it just didn't pull together.  This is the handout I came up with instead:

Handout 4/page in PDF.
I gave it to the girls with a "sweet treat" of cake balls.

YW-3-30: Scripture Study

I had a hard time finding ideas for this lesson.  It didn't help that my husband is also teaching the same topic to the same age group in the Sunday School hour, so we've been trying to find different ways to teach it.  Sugardoodle had some ideas that I tweaked and then I found this recipie and decided to make bread durring class.  They have explainations as well that I would suggest printing off.
I will give the girls the handout below and have them fingure out what our recipie needs and them let them eat a second loaf (already baked) while we go over the rest of the lesson.

This handout is 2/page: PDF

Here is another recipie from lds.org that you could use as well.

I also found these two other ideas that I might tie in as well.

I might challange the girls to start working on reading the Book of Mormon for the Virtue Personal Progress project and use this scripture reading chart from Tales of a Trophy Wife:

And I LOVE these little scriptures from Little Miss Suzy Q!!!

YW 3-27: Forgiving Ourselves

This is what finally made me decide I needed to do this blog. I searched all over one night and couldn't find this poem. Finally I threw together this handout:
I was so irritated that I hadn't saved my hard work from the last time I did this. I quickly emailed the poem to Sugardoodle so someone else could use it too and now I'm on there (here)!

I Am a Princess

Here is the poem (the background didn't show up here) 4/page: PDF

YW-1-21: A Righteous Example Influences Others

Open/Print the document (8/page) here.

Here Goes

So, having been in YW for awhile now, I realized that I keep making handouts and things that help me with my lessons or activities but haven't been saving or sharing them. Lots of times I steal things from others and it's about time to let others steal from me. Hopfuly I can help someone else. If not, at least they are here for me to use again.
PS - If anyone has any of my old handouts and wants to send them back to me, I'll post those on here too.