Young Women In Excellence

I can honestly say that I love my calling and I love these girls (even though we are missing a few in the picture).  I am the YW Secretary, but I am also in charge of Personal Progress, which means that I had the "opportunity" to plan Young Women In Excellence (YWIE) back in December.  After perusing Pinterest for inspiration, I had several themes picked out.  In the end, I went a different route and chose "You Are HIS Sunshine".  I couldn't shake the idea that I really wanted the girls to understand their worth and that they ARE His sunshine, and that they need to then radiate that sunshine to those around them.  Sounds a little cheesy writing it out, but it felt right, so I went with it.  I was able to use some of the decorations from Brooke's birthday party, which made preparations a little bit easier.

The program included a song by the YW (Walk Tall, You're a Daughter of God), young women and leaders sharing their experiences with the personal progress program, a short message from me, a video presentation (an almost-disaster), and closing remarks from the Bishop.  Oh, and refreshments.

In my mind, the video presentation spotlighting the girls was going to be great.  I was going to get all the pictures, use picMonkey to write their names on the pictures, and put them all together in an awesome video.  Well, after a month of asking the girls for pictures (and only having like 2 girls send any), my plan was failing.  About a week before YWIE, I again reminded the girls, then posted a reminder on our Facebook page (which also goes to parents).  I gradually began receiving more pictures, but I was still missing A LOT.  I really considered pulling pictures off their Facebook accounts (which I hate that you can do), but felt like that was a bit creepy. The day before YWIE, I had finally scrounged up at least one picture of every girl (even if they were outdated), and finalized the video, which was totally stressing me out.  About 10 am the morning of, I had a parent email me some pictures and write "hopefully it's not too late." I already had pictures of their daughter from another young woman, so I simply replied that I had already finalized the video, but that their daughter was definitely represented.  I mean, this was hours before the program, and I had about a zillion other things to do. (I know I am venting.)  The dad then replied, and said "Isn't there any way you could squeeze these in?".  I really didn't want to deal with it, but decided that if I had time later, I would go back, edit the video, and then export it again.  Sounds easy, but it is time consuming.  Long story kinda short, I was able to add the pictures (along with more pictures another girl sent late), and had the final video on my little jump drive.  I was feeling pretty happy with myself :)  When I arrived at the church to set up the video with the guy helping with all things technical, he informed me that his cords for the projector didn't work with my mac.  What????? I almost died inside.  I called Kevin, who informed me that we a cord at home that would work.  (I think I was prompted to look for a cord earlier in the afternoon, but failed to act on it because I figured the guy with the projector would have whatever we needed.)  So, Kevin was saintly enough to drive the 25 minutes to the church and bring it to me after he had just set down to eat dinner with Brooke.  He arrived literally 3 minutes before it was time to show the video. Talk about divine intervention :)  In no way was the video what I had originally envisioned (due to having the pics last minute), but I still felt like it added something special to the evening. Maybe just because I love the girls in it, haha.

As a take-home reminder of the evening, I created the Sunshine printout and put them into these awesome $1 Ikea frames. My hope was that the girls would place them in their rooms as a constant reminder :)

Overall, I felt like the night was a success and I had multiple people tell me how much they loved the program, so that was encouraging.