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 :) .

Money Management

I really don't mean to monopolize this blog, but we had a fun activity on Wednesday night that was a good way to help the young women understand the importance of budgeting their money so I wanted to share it.

One of the last lessons in the manual is on Money Management and we aren't going to get that far before the end of the year.  It's an important concept and so we decided to teach it at a midweek activity instead.   I used this activity idea 2 or 3 years ago with my kids and adapted it a little for the young women.

In a nutshell, I gave them this scenario:  You are married with two kids.  Only one of you works.  You have two cars and a mortgage.  You make $40,200 per year which is $3,350 per month.  Then I gave them (as a group) $3,350 in Monopoly money.  From there, I had them choose slips of paper out of a little basket.  The slips each contained one typical expense.  As the girls took turns drawing the slips, they would pay me the amount of money indicated.

To start, there was one slip colored yellow that said, "Pick me first."  I made sure they started with that one:

A few of the girls wondered what this first one would be.  They decided it must be taxes.  When they opened it and read, "Tithing:  $335," their reaction was, "Oh, of course!"  We had a brief discussion about paying tithing first.  Then they took turns pulling slips from the basket and paying the required amount of money.

The other slips contained the following categories:  fast offerings; savings; Federal and State income taxes;  auto registration, fuel, insurance, and service; electricity/gas; trash; telephone, internet, cell phone(s); water/sewer; groceries; household expenses (non-food); housing (mortgage); property taxes; homeowners insurance; health insurance.

When we got done with these, they were at $0.  (I didn't plan it that way, that's just how it happened to work out.)  I then threw a few more slips in the basket that just contained categories (no dollar amounts) of the things they wouldn't be able to afford - at least this month - and we read through those:  other charitable donations; magazine subscriptions; Christmas; Birthdays; clothings; hobbies/crafts; education; entertainment; memberships (clubs, gym, etc.); music, dance, sports; vacation.

It was eye opening. I told them that I didn't do this to scare them. They initially thought that $3350 a month sounded pretty good but now they weren't so sure! (For the record, I assured them that I know from personal experience during our lean graduate school days that it's possible to live happily on much less and stay out of debt!) I pulled out my scriptures and we read 3 Nephi 13:32:  For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. (Isn't that a great verse?)  Then we backed up and read vs. 31-33. Again, we discussed tithing and the importance of putting the Lord first and the blessings associated with that. Sister Swensen shared a powerful testimony of tithing from her days as a single parent.  We also discussed Jacob 2:18-19 and the message contained there. I think it was effective and hopefully will help the girls to be realistic and wise as they plan for the future. I hope they will learn to trust in the Lord and to know that He is aware of their needs and that His promises are sure!

S.T.A.R. - Young Women in Excellence

{I just posted the following on my personal blog and thought I'd share it here as well.  I'd love to see your ideas for these events!}

We had our Young Women in Excellence program last night.  I was a little bit worried about it.  Some of our girls haven't been very excited about Personal Progress.  Since Young Women in Excellence is a "celebration of Personal Progress," I challenged each of them to do something that they could share last night.  Well those amazing girls stepped right up to the plate and did a great job!  I was so proud of them as they shared what they've learned, what they still hope to accomplish, and how setting goals has helped them.  A member of our Bishopric is doing the program with the girls so he contributed his accomplishments last night as well.

Our theme was S.T.A.R. - Stand for Truth And Righteousness

There is a Primary song called I Am Like a Star which went along with our theme for the evening: S.T.A.R. - Stand for Truth And Righteousness. (No credit to myself for that one.  The internet is full of good ideas!!)  I wrote a second verse to the Primary song which went like this:  I am like a star shining brightly, shining for the whole world to see.  I can be a light, stand for truth and right, and be all that He wants me to be. The young women sang that as our special musical number for the evening.  Simple and sweet.

Our Bishop challenged each young woman to:  Seize the Day (Carpe Diem), live life more abundantly (see John 10:10), and be anxiously engaged in good causes (D&C 58:27).  [Maybe he forgot he was speaking to the young women because I'm pretty sure that was all for me!!]

It was a great evening, complete with an impressive display of food at the end.  From spiced cider, meatballs, little sausages wrapped in crescent rolls to a huge veggie tray and star shaped cupcakes, there was something for everyone.  The young men and cub scouts who found us after their activities enjoyed the treats as well.  :)  (Hooray for a wonderful counselor who took on the food challenge and outdid herself.  Otherwise, we would have had homemade cookies and water...)

Overall, a great evening!  (I am SO glad it's over!!)

Memorize the Family Proclamation.... Check!

The Stake YW Presidency has a special announcement to make:  3 of us have finished memorizing the Family Proclamation!! 


That's right.  Our president, Sister Becca Anderson, and her two counselors, Sister Janna Allan and Sister Emily Savage, have just passed off a big personal progress project.  And let me tell you, memorizing it certainly brought about a lot of personal progress.   There is so much joy and wisdom to be found in that inspired document.... and it feels so good to have it committed to heart and memory.

We're excited to hear about your own personal progress stories!  How are you doing with your personal progress?

Words of Wisdom

I just redid one of the bulletin boards in our Young Women classroom.  It's definitely nothing fancy - I wanted to keep it simple - but it displays recent quotes from our leaders.  All of the quotes are from the most recent General Conference with the exception of Sister Dalton's quote which is from the General Young Women meeting this past March.  I plan to update it regularly to keep it current.

 A few close ups: