YWIE 2016

This year, we chose the theme "Be The Light" for Young Women in Excellence.  We decorated with a lot of white and gold, and lanterns. We kept refreshments simple (a huge cake from Costco), but the evening turned out so well!

We set up on Monday evening since nobody would be in the church that evening, and then Tuesday wouldn't be so chaotic. My Secretary borrowed all the lanterns and fairy lights from her MIL which was such a blessing since we had a lot of tables to decorate.

I saw an idea on pinterest to take pictures of each girl, so I bought wrapping paper with gold designs on it, and hung it in the YW room as the backdrop.  I had originally planned to take the pictures myself, but one of my counselors suggested asking one of our YW who was less active.  I followed her suggestion, and it was totally inspired.  Not only did that make her feel obligated to come for a few weeks in a row (to get everyone photographed), but it gave me an opportunity to recognize her at YWIE since her mom sometimes feels that she is not included even though she rarely comes (that's another story). We placed the pictures one each table, and I loved how it turned out.  Brooke was in charge of sprinkling the gold stars on each table and she LOVED her duty :)

We had a few display tables for projects, but we didn't have many girls bring things.  I get it that lots of the projects don't have something to display, but I was hoping for a few more.  I gave the girls the option of whether they wanted to display something, present something, or perform something.  We had a pretty nice variety, which was good.  Our main speaker was Sister Parr from our ward, and she did such an incredible job.  I seriously love her, and asked her to email me her message because it was so great.  We had a few girls sing, play the piano, and tell about their experiences in earning their medallion, etc.  Although this calling takes SO much of my time, I really do love it and hope that I am doing a good enough job for these girls!  It's a lot of responsibility and I worry about them a lot.  They face challenges every day at school, but their strength and testimony is seriously amazing.  I am sure that I learn more from them than they do from me, haha.

At the end of the evening, everyone helped clean up, and we were driving away by 9 pm.  Hooray!