Youth Conference 2012

Along with most of the youth and some other leaders from the stake, Thomas and I had the privilege of attending Youth Conference this past weekend.  He went with the Mahomet young men, and I was the chaperone for the Tuscola young women.  We spent a day and a half at a campsite.  There we were able to go on a youth-led geocaching scavenger hunt that lasted many hours. We worked in 18 companies of approximately 12 youth.  The Cache's contained clues about the next cache.  Some of them had tasks that had to be performed.   We were challenged with trials.  Cholera was contracted(which meant that a few members(1/3) of the group had to move on with one leg tied up.  Weston said he heard stories about youth getting frostbite.  'Snakes' had to be carried across the river.  Practical jokes were encouraged, which led a certain sister who was too exhausted to climb up and down a steep hill for the 23rd time(okay, maybe a little exaggeration there), to sit down on the hill, grab youth going by and tell them she had smallpox, and they had contracted it and must crawl up the hill now!  hee hee hee.


Then we went on to have a Book of Mormon battle, which was enacted in the woods with foam weapons and shields the youth made themselves.  The youth were divided into two battalions and battles commenced, with live drumming (that Brother Eliason was thrilled to contribute!) in the background!  We had an outdoor dance that night and it looked like a majority of the youth were having a great time....a number of them seemed exhausted too!  :)
The following day we had a march in the morning and then a devotional and headed to the St Louis area.  There we stayed in host homes in the OFallon Stake and heard Elder David Bednar speak for about 5 hours total, both Friday evening and Saturday Morning.  Elder Bednar spoke about being agents and not objects.  Teaching us to act instead of waiting to be acted upon.  He spent most of the time conducting a question and answer forum.  The teens asked questions both verbally and anonymously by submitting written questions on cards.  This process really seemed to engage the youth and there were never long pauses between questions!  The meetings were filled with a great spirit, and Elder Bednar brought with him a blessing from the Prophet, and a tangible love from the leaders of the church.
He also talked about getting an inexpensive copy of the Book of Mormon and going through it with a question and underlining anything that related to that question.  He said he has a whole shelf of inexpensive copies of the Book of Mormon at home, each one is there because he went through it with one question in his mind.  When we have questions we can always find an answer in the Book of Mormon.
If I have gotten anything not quite right, please forgive me, I think I am still running on fumes.  We got home late Saturday, up early Sunday to teach, then off to pick up the trailer that caused us to get home late Saturday...Since then we have been focusing on getting our 16 yo ready to leave for the mini-mission early tomorrow-what 16 yo young man actually owns 5 white Sunday shirts anyway??? lol :)  Okay, I digress. :)
I usually edit my photos before I share them but my laptop is not cooperating with me so I am just going to upload them as is.  Hope you can find a few to appreciate! :)
Michele Eliason

Urbana Girls Play Soccer

Esther Johnson and Celeste Miller from the Urbana Ward have a bit of friendly competition during a soccer match in April.  Way to go, girls!

We love to see pictures of the Young Women on the blog!  Please send your pictures and stories to emilythesavage@gmail.com so we can all get to know you and your Young Women better.

Welcome, Genevieve!

Genevieve Elizabeth Savage

April 24, 2012

7lb 5oz -- 20.5 inches -- 9:52am 

We would love to hear about the exciting things happening in your personal lives, so let us know by sharing on the blog!  You can send your news to emilythesavage@gmail.com or post about it yourself.  Can't wait to get to know you better!

Young Women Trivia Game

At the Champaign Ward "New Beginnings" we played an active trivia game that was a big hit, so I wanted to share the idea with the other units!  The game could be played at any activity with the girls, however we found it especially fun to have mothers involved.

At one end of the gym I spread out 50 word strips and at the other end of the gym we had the girls grouped as a team, mothers and female leaders as a team, and members of the bishopric as another team.  The word strips were facing the teams, but were too far away to be read.  I held a bowl with 20 trivia questions next to the teams.  Each team sent one person forward to grab a question at the same time, so each team was always working on just one unique question.  The team member had to run down to the word strips and locate the correct answer, then bring it back to me to check.  There were 30 more answers than there were questions so I made up a few value colors, people, years, etc. to make it difficult.  If the answer was wrong the next person on the team took the same question down and tried to find the right answer.   If the answer was right the next person on the team picked a new question and ran down to find the answer.  We had one leader assigned as a "runner" to return all of the incorrect answers to the other end of the gym to be available to pick for other questions.  It was a great game to get everyone moving, testing their knowledge, and competing to show whether current or past YW know their stuff!  (And just for the curious, the mothers and leaders won!)

If you would like the questions we used or any clarifications, e-mail me at amymknowlton@gmail.com.

What do you think?

I just received an email from a good friend of the family (trickled down through the grapevine...) indicating that the General Young Women's Presidency is looking for responses to the following promt:

“What I hope my daughters/granddaughters will know after six years in Young Women.”

What do you think?  If Sister Dalton was to ask you this question herself, how would you respond?  

Temple Bound!

As I'm sure you are well aware, the Stake Scripture for the year of 2012 is:

 "Let us be a temple-attending and a temple-loving people.  Let us hasten to the temple as frequently as time and means and personal circumstances allow...The temple is a place of beauty, it is a place of revelation, it is a place of peace.  It is the house of the Lord.  It is holy unto the Lord.  It should be holy unto us."  (President Hunter Ensign Oct. 1994)

How exciting that we get to spend so much time focusing on the temple this year, especially as it relates to Young Women!  I'm sure we all feel like we will have done our duty if we can only get our Young Women to go to the temple someday.  This new topic correlates perfectly with our Stake Theme from last year, the Family Proclamation, as they both help us realize our eternal destiny in the Plan of Salvation as daughters of God.  

I got to see the temple's direct influence on my little sister just a few weeks ago.  She has always been a valiant spirit, but the empowering influence of the temple became clear to me as I saw her come out of the temple for the very first time.  I know that no one else who reads this blog knows her, but I think you can tell from the pictures the kind of impact the house of the Lord had on her.  

Isn't she simply radiant??  She is now in the MTC preparing to serve in the Salt Lake City, Temple Square mission.   It has been wonderful to see her go from a Young Woman to a missionary of God.

The girls in our stake are just as wonderful, and YOU are helping them become radiant women of God themselves!  Keep it up :) .