New Beginnings 2014

New Beginnings was my responsibility to take care of this year.

Since I'm in charge of Personal Progress and it has a LOT to do with Personal Progress, they put me in charge of it. 

Usually, the Young Women should be the ones putting it on and choosing what happens. Since we hadn't talked about it soon enough, I did it myself. And! I got to use it as my Divine Nature Project!

So here's what I did!

It was in early February.

The theme for the night was that Personal Progress is a Recipe for Life.

The invitations were formatted like a recipe card.

The programs were shaped like tea pots

I asked Young Women to do as much as possible.

It was a snowy night, so some didn't come and one who had responsibilities said her mom wouldn't drive her in the snow! Eek!!! So I went and picked her up. We weren't having that...

The Theme was BEAUTIFUL. I asked her to study the theme and do Choice and Accountability 6, give a little blurb about what she learned about the theme, and lead us in it.

She went above and beyond. She described every single aspect of it and what she learned. Such a beautiful, wonderful Beehive.

Motto, logo and symbols was simple. What I like that she did was that she looked specifically at those in each class and said YOU are the one who… (insert what the Beehive/Mia Maid/Laurel is supposed to remember and do)

I explained the evening's theme. I talked about how it all relates to a recipe. We have goals for our life and in order to attain them, we need to follow a procedure, just like Personal Progress. And if we do our Personal Progress and keep doing those things once we're done, we will become wonderful, smart, awesome women of God.

These were my notes.

I went through the next day and wrote down how everything went and my feelings on everything.

This was the conducting sheet. Stefanie was going to conduct, but she got sick, so I got to. :)

We had a beautiful musical number.

We sang I Walk By Faith. I remember singing this in Young Women's. They have changed it to include the new value, Virtue. It's so pretty. It explains what our purpose is as Young Women and what the Personal Progress program is all about.

Next, the YW president introduced our new Beehives. I didn't get a picture of all of the names, but I made these for their chairs. We have 2 active 11 year olds that we can't wait to have in Young Women's! They are adorable!

What happened next, I wish I could have gotten a picture of. 

It went perfectly, too!

Everyone was asked to wear aprons since the theme was about recipes.

I printed out and cut out a billion questions and had them taped under their seats. So everyone had a question to answer about themselves while they congregated. 

The questions were things like "What's your favorite flower?" "What country would you like to vacation to?" "What's your favorite band/singer?"

We also had ingredients to make a yummy salsa. It's black beans, white corn, lime, cilantro, avocado, onion…So yummy. You eat it with tortilla chips, it's really easy.

So they answered those questions while they made salsa!

Then we sat down and had more program while we ate a little.

 The YW Presidency got up and talked about how much they love the girls and have grown from them.

A Laurel who was getting her medallion in a few weeks and her mom talked about how Personal Progress has impacted their lives in the home and elsewhere.

Then I got up and we gave the girls some ribbons for their accomplishments and some new Personal Progress books!!!

Oh my goodness, it's soooo cool! 

It's bound to the journal, For the Strength of Youth pamphlet, and True to the Faith. All very important books.

So far, it's proving to be helpful in getting all of the books to church at one time.

(Sorry the pic's blurry. :(  )

One complaint I have about PP is that it's hard to know where to start. 

So I found on Pinterest (Thank you, smart other people out there who share your ideas!! What would I do without you??) a list of Personal Progress experiences you can do in one day.

*commence angelic chorus*

 Then, I gave them each a sticky note and asked them to set a goal for what they would do in Personal Progress before November when Young Women in Excellence is.

That was cool. We have them tacked onto our bulletin board.

 After I talked, the Bishop gave a few remarks and we ended. It took longer than the 1.5 hours I was allotted, but it was beautiful. The spirit was strong, the girls were awesome. It was perfect.

 This is what the room looked like. 

We had cook books, crock pots, spatulas, mixers...

 The flags all represent one of the 8 values. How cool is that?

This was their handout. It was AWESOME!

The paper is a recipe for each color of the values. White is a white chili, blue is blueberry muffins and so on. The recipes came from some of the leaders. It was a really neat idea and I've enjoyed what I've made so far!!

It was a beautiful evening and it went really really well!