Young Women in Excellence 2013

Since I do the Personal Progress in my ward, I was responsible for our Young Women in Excellence activity on November 6, 2013.

YWIE (Young Women in Excellence) is an activity we have once every year to show off what the girls have done in Personal Progress throughout the year. In 2013, I didn't prepare the girls through the year for YWIE, so we mostly just talked about Personal Progress and how awesome our YW are.

Our theme was "Daughters of a King." 

One of our most basic beliefs as LDS members is that we are the Lord's children and are to inherit many wonderful blessings.

We decorated it so that it would look like a banquet for royalty. It was beautiful. 

Our Laurel (16-17 year olds) advisor decorates for events as a living, so we are sooooo very lucky to have her being willing to help and provide so much.

We turned off the hallway lights and lined the hallways with red and gold and christmas lights.

It was a perfect entrance into:

With red and white flowers

Golden candelabras with crystals

and golden chargers. It was BEAUTIFUL!!!

This was the gorgeous buffet table. We had "royal" snacks. Chocolate fondue, yummy things to dip like rice krispy treats and strawberries. It was very yummy.

This was the podium/stage.

On top of the piano. :)

The theme was so perfectly portrayed. We gave each girl a poster that had the quote from President Uchtdorf that said "You are truly Royal daughters of almighty God, Princesses destined to become Queens. Your own wondrous story has already begun. Your Once Upon a Time is now."

For a few months before the event, we had pictures taken of each of the girls so that we could give it to them and show them that they are beautiful, wonderful amazing daughters of the Lord. 

Our awesome Bro Porter did the pictures. He can take some very beautiful pictures. Most of the pictures on this post are from him. You can see more of his work here.

By each picture on the table, they were asked to make a display that portrays who they are. They could bring something that represented an accomplishment, a passion, or anything that meant them.

One girl brought a poster of her favorite band, One Direction. :) One girl brought her program from a solo she sang. It was awesome. I brought my clarinet, running shoes (I ran a 5K for my Personal Progress goal in 2013), a crocheted blanket, and something to represent being a mommy. One of our leaders who does calligraphy did each girl's name to put next to their picture and display. It turned out very well! I was impressed!

When the activity started, we lined up the girls in age order, gave them tiaras, and had them escorted into the room by members of the Bishopric (Our local congregation's leadership). I had a brother from our Ward (who has a great, authoritative type voice) announce each girl by saying "Princess Grace of the Curtis family" but changed for each girl. It was really cool. 

These are our beautiful Young Women (some of them) being escorted in. Such beautiful, wonderful girls!!!

 Apparently Kiki thought it was hilarious. :)

Then, we had the girls sit down and listen to "Daughter of a King." It's a beautiful story about how we are all princesses and princes destined to be great and become like our Heavenly Father. But as we go through life, it gets hard, so it's important to act like the Princesses we are.

Then I explained the theme a little and talked about our beautiful wonderful young women.

Then we had the presidents of each class explain the classes.

Beehive

Mia Maid

Laurel

We had one of our Laurels sing "Daughter of a King" by Jenny Phillips. At the end, the leaders joined in and sang harmony with her. It was gorgeous. She did a FABULOUS job.

Here's a video of her singing it.

After we sang, we had the accompaniment continue and the Bishopric handed out the pictures to each girl and said "You are a Daughter of a King." It was a very tender moment where each girl was told that they are a royal princess and are special to Him.

 I was so proud of how it turned out. I had great leaders to work with and it was beautiful and spiritual. We really loved it.