Young Women in Excellence is TOMORROW!

The young women and their leaders have worked hard to prepare this event to celebrate our lovely young women, their accomplishments, and their many talents. The only thing missing is you. Please join us in the Primary Room. It really just wouldn't be the same without you. ;)

Preparing for "Young Women In Excellence" -- a letter to parents

Dear Parents,

As we plan for our Young Women in Excellence Program, we seek to focus on the girls and their activities. We have a group of wonderful, busy, and accomplished young women in our ward. Your daughter is no exception.

Please help us show your daughters how amazing they are by participating with us on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 7 PM. We would appreciate it if you would take 2 or 3 minutes to tell about your daughter’s accomplishments. We see so much talent in each of them. Some talents are readily visible, like dancing or playing an instrument. Others are subtle, like being conscientious, keeping a clean bedroom, or reading the scriptures each day. We would like you to share with all of us what you see as your daughter’s greatest talent, especially those talents that we may not be able to see during the brief times we have to spend with her.

We appreciate your constant support of the Young Women program and your efforts to teach your daughters of their divine roll as women of God. Please join us in celebrating the goodness and light that streams from these young people.

Sincerely,

The Hobble Creek West 13th Ward YW Presidency

Ginny Duncan, President
Monica Blume, 1st Counselor
Amy Kelly, 2nd Counselor
Luann Hawker, Secretary

September 2009

September zoomed by at light speed, but we still managed to have some fun. Our combined activity with the Young Men was a trip to Deseret Industries in Provo. We all learned some things about the church humanitarian services, then we split into small groups and spent some time volunteering with various tasks in the DI sorting areas. The group in the photo above was assigned to sort through a bin of donated books and pick the ones that were in good condition and had content appropriate for resale.

The Young Women also started making preparations for our upcoming event, "Young Women in Excellence", which will celebrate the Personal Progress Program. The theme for the evening is "A Garden of Girls" and the date is set for Tuesday, October 27. Please note that this is a different date than was originally planned. We look forward to spending a wonderful evening with the Young Women and their parents.

October started off well with our first activity last Tuesday, October 6. We all took a short trip to the Provo Temple and the girls randomly visited with patrons as they were leaving the temple. They thanked the patrons for taking the time to serve the Lord in the temple, asked them what they loved most about their temple visit, then sent the kind strangers on their way with a plate of home made cookies. After all the cookies had been distributed, we gathered together to share some of the thoughts passed on by the temple patrons. The evening prompted a good discussion about why we attend the temple and the reverence we feel when we are there.




Here are the activities we have to look forward to in October:
October 13 -- YM/YW Combined activity
October 20 -- Cake Decorating
October 27 -- Young Women in Excellence

Bittersweet August

Back to school "To Do" lists made August a busy month, so for our youth activities we tried for quality rather with quantity. Early in the month the youth went on their quarterly youth temple trip and did baptisms for the dead in the Provo temple. Late in the month, we did our best to squeeze out just a little more summer with an afternoon of pizza, boating, and riding gigantic water wienies on Utah lake. Many thanks to Brother Blume and Brother Ricks for generously taking us out in their boats. Everyone had a great time!

The last few days of August were tearful, as we said goodbye to our Young Women's President, Sister Brenna Williams, who has moved to Pennsylvania. Sister Williams, we wish you and your family all the best in your new adventures. Sister Alice Graham and Sister RevaBeth Russell were also released as counselors in the Young Women's presidency. Sister Williams and Sister Graham had both served with us for 1 year. Sister Russell was newer to the presidency and had only been serving with us for a few months. To all three of you, we give heartfelt thanks for sharing your time, your talents, and your love of the gospel with us. We are better for our friendship with you, and we love you.

Although it is hard to say goodbye, we are also very happy to welcome our new Young Women's leaders. We are excited to announce that Sister Ginny Duncan is our new president. Also serving with her are first counselor Monica Blume, and second counselor Amy Kelly. All three women are brimming with energy and ideas and we can't wait to see what great things they have in store for us.

To see more photos of our trip to the lake and other youth activities, visit the photo gallery. (click here)

Pre-Camp Parent's Meeting. Don't miss it! : )

Remembering Christ

This week, Sister Graham put together a wonderful activity reminding us what Easter is all about -- the Atonement of Christ. It was an evening full of the spirit, sisterhood and testimony.

At the activity, we placed scarves on our heads to show humility, and as a tribute to New Testament times. We each had a taste of unleavened bread and grape juice to draw our thoughts to Christ at the last supper. Then we passed around a basket of Easter eggs and each took a turn opening one. Inside each egg was a scripture referencing Christ during his last days on Earth, and leading up to the crucifixion and His all important resurrection.

Thank you, Sister Graham for helping us focus on what is most important during this holiday season, our Savior Jesus Christ.

Tonight's Activity

Girls,

We are super excited for tonight's activity!! Please bring a favorite stuffed animal with you. We need it for what we're doing. Hope to see you all there!!

Sis. Williams

YW's Broadcast TONIGHT

Hey Girls, I just wanted to remind everyone of the broadcast tonight. It starts at 6pm in the chapel. I know tonight is preference, too. But we all know that dances are never fun until like 10pm anyway, so that gives you time to come to the broadcast and then still go to the dance in plenty of time! :) Hope to see you all there!!

<3 Sis. Williams

An Art Outing

Tonight's activity was an outing to the Harris Fine Art Center on BYU campus. Our main purpose for going was to see a photography exhibit titled "Daughters of Eve" by Whitney Hardie. It was a series of portraits depicting Eve in various stages and pivotal moments of her life.

This is the artist's statement for the exhibit:
Daughters of Eve is a collection of photographs that seeks to honor Eve and foster respect and admiration for women everywhere.

Eve, as the first woman, represents the essence of femininity to me. She was the crowning creation of our Heavenly Father, though her role has been widely misunderstood throughout history. Eve has been accused of great pride and is generally considered the weaker of the pair. She is often represented as a temptress -- a fallen creature who led to the downfall of all mankind. All of these misconceptions have contributed to the disparaging of the female sex as a whole.

By the light of the restored gospel, we are able to understand Eve's divine role in the Father's plan. She made a choice that set in motion the existence of mankind. She experienced the sweet and the bitter in life, always seeking to know God's will. I honor her decision, I admire her bravery, and I stand in awe of her beautiful daughters who continue on in the legacy she began.

I give my compliments to the artist because her work was both stunning and thought provoking. It prompted us into an interesting discussion about the role of women in the world today, as well as how the treatment of women has evolved through past generations.

To view a gallery of photos from this activity, as well as other youth activities, click here.

(Note: Don't forget that you can "right click" on one of the photos in the gallery to download it. Then you can use the photo in a blog entry and give us your take on the art exhibit. Or you can always just leave a comment here and tell us what you thought. I look forward to hearing from you.)

Back from the Coma

Lets see if we can revive this thing! I've re-invited all the YW to join as authors and really think that we can make some good use of this thing if everyone remembers to check it and read it.

For those of you girls who don't know what an RSS feed is, have an RSS reader, or even know what I'm talking about, you can make it so that you get new posts emailed to you every time there is a new post added. So, let me or Sis. Hawker know if you want that option and we can help you set it up that way so that you don't have to remember this address or check it daily.

I think this would make mass communication much easier, so lets everyone use it! OK?? :)

Sis. Williams

Get Ready to RRRRRRRRRumble!

Thanks go to the Teacher's Quorum for arranging last Tuesday's combined activity, which was an action packed round of gym hockey. Hockey sticks and youth were flying around the gym like you wouldn't believe, and some of the leaders even got in on the action. Everyone seemed to have a great time and the final score was pretty close, but the game ended with a tie breaking goal. Kudos to all involved for showing top notch sportsmanship. You guys rock!

New Beginnings

Last Sunday was our New Beginnings night. New Beginnings is an annual event teaching the purposes of the Young Women organization. It includes an orientation to the Personal Progress program and to the Young Women theme, logo, motto, and values. See www.lds.org .

Our Young Women were in beautiful form for the event. They worked hard planning and carrying out the entire thing. From the decorations, to the presentations, to the cupcakes, it was all them. They did an outstanding job, and the evening was ripe with a wonderful spirit of closeness with our Heavenly Father and with each other. As a Young Women Presidency, we couldn't be more proud of them.

Thank you, girls, for a perfect evening.