I really am a horrible blogger. No need to point it out. I know it is a fact. I decided to blog today because I just got back from Girls' Camp and my heart is full.
I really do love the YW in my stake and feel so blessed for the time I have had to serve them. This may very well be the last camp I attend in this stake. It is exciting in a way thinking that my summer plans won't revolve around Camp and/or Youth Conference. But it also saddens me a bit. Why? I'll tell ya.
I love my girls. I feel like a little mama hen with her chicks when I'm around them. I want them to be happy and good. I love watching them grow in the Gospel. I love seeing that first little spark of testimony when they are Beehives and watching it develop into a full-fledged fire when they are Laurels. It is incredible. I feel so blessed to have witnessed this with so many Young Women. I love talking with them and hearing their hearts' desires and discussing the temptations they face. I love talking about boys and dating with them. I love staying up late and laughing with them. I love sharing my testimony with them. I love hanging out with them. I love learning from them. I love watching them help and uplift one another. They are amazing Young Women.
In 4 short days of Camp, I am able to do all these things. I come home exhausted but enriched, motivated to be a better example and leader.
That's why tears are blurring my vision as I type this. I will miss these girls and the bond that we share. I will miss that sacred week we lovingly refer to as "Girls' Camp".
Showing posts with label Young Women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Young Women. Show all posts
Friday, July 31, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Back in Action
I really didn't intend to not blog for so long, really, I didn't. However, a series of events added up to my long hiatus.
Here's what's been happenin':
We took n 8 day trip to Vegas/San Diego and had a wonderful time. Stayed with the Youngs in Vegas and got to see our favorite Petts in San Diego. We did all we could to induce labor in Marina while we were there but little Sasha wanted to stay nice and cozy in her mama's belly for awhile longer! We went to Sea World (2x) Legoland, the SD Zoo and the beach. We enjoyed every minute we spent there and wished we could have stayed longer!
Curtis and Noah finished their 3rd and 1st grade years and both did a great job. They are looking forward to a long summer break but already miss their friends!
Lucy turned the magical age of 18 months which every Mormon mother longingly looks forward to because the baby can then go to Nursery at church! Lucy loves Nursery (so do I!) and doesn't even look back when I drop her off. She's growing up so fast!
Our computer got a virus (or 12) and I couldn't even log on for a few days. Our friend Collin fixed it up like new and delivered it to us yesterday so we are back in action! Thanks, Col!
I fell down our porch steps and landed right on my tailbone, I couldn't sit for 2 weeks so the computer was out of the question! I was in so much pain! I finally went to the chiropractor because my back was giving me problems from trying to sit in weird positions to avoid the tailbone. After 2 visits, I was able to sit (thank goodness)just in time for...
Youth Conference. We had YC at the U of U this last week. It was really fun and spiritual and I am exhausted! We had great speakers (John Bytheway, Brad Wilcox, just to name a few) good food, fun dance, great service project and other activities. I love it when all the planning and preparation come to fruition. It was fun but I'm glad it's over! Thanks to Mom and Dad for taking such good care of my children while I was there. They didn't even miss me!
In other news: We received 2 new little nieces into our extended families this month. Troy and Rachel welcomed little Emma on June 3rd and David and Marina welcomed sweet Sasha on June 9th. We are excited to watch these little girls grow and get to know them! Congrats to both families!
There's the last month in a nutshell. I will post some pictures as soon as I get caught up on paying bills and reading the emails I missed while the computer was sick!
Here's what's been happenin':
We took n 8 day trip to Vegas/San Diego and had a wonderful time. Stayed with the Youngs in Vegas and got to see our favorite Petts in San Diego. We did all we could to induce labor in Marina while we were there but little Sasha wanted to stay nice and cozy in her mama's belly for awhile longer! We went to Sea World (2x) Legoland, the SD Zoo and the beach. We enjoyed every minute we spent there and wished we could have stayed longer!
Curtis and Noah finished their 3rd and 1st grade years and both did a great job. They are looking forward to a long summer break but already miss their friends!
Lucy turned the magical age of 18 months which every Mormon mother longingly looks forward to because the baby can then go to Nursery at church! Lucy loves Nursery (so do I!) and doesn't even look back when I drop her off. She's growing up so fast!
Our computer got a virus (or 12) and I couldn't even log on for a few days. Our friend Collin fixed it up like new and delivered it to us yesterday so we are back in action! Thanks, Col!
I fell down our porch steps and landed right on my tailbone, I couldn't sit for 2 weeks so the computer was out of the question! I was in so much pain! I finally went to the chiropractor because my back was giving me problems from trying to sit in weird positions to avoid the tailbone. After 2 visits, I was able to sit (thank goodness)just in time for...
Youth Conference. We had YC at the U of U this last week. It was really fun and spiritual and I am exhausted! We had great speakers (John Bytheway, Brad Wilcox, just to name a few) good food, fun dance, great service project and other activities. I love it when all the planning and preparation come to fruition. It was fun but I'm glad it's over! Thanks to Mom and Dad for taking such good care of my children while I was there. They didn't even miss me!
In other news: We received 2 new little nieces into our extended families this month. Troy and Rachel welcomed little Emma on June 3rd and David and Marina welcomed sweet Sasha on June 9th. We are excited to watch these little girls grow and get to know them! Congrats to both families!
There's the last month in a nutshell. I will post some pictures as soon as I get caught up on paying bills and reading the emails I missed while the computer was sick!
Monday, February 23, 2009
Updates
Yesterday marked the end of one of my "busy seasons" with Young Womens. The last 2 months I have been attending Ward Conferences to visit the Young Womens classes. My counselors and I have been teaching the lesson so I only had to teach twice. We decided to use the talk from Elaine Dalton entitiled "A Return to Virtue". I feel like this call is so timely as our world actually looks down on virtuous women and we are being bombarded on all sides to abandon our virtue.
A few thoughts that stuck out to me were:
"What could be more deceptive than to entice women, young and old, you and me, to be so involved in ourselves, our looks, our clothes, our body shape and size that we lose sight of our divine identity and our ability to change the world through our virtuous influence?"
"I truly believe that one virtuous young woman or young man, led by the Spirit, can change the world, but in order to do so, we must return to virtue."
We talked about standing in holy places and where those holy places are. One of the leaders yesterday said that our holy place can be inside of us and as we live a virtuous life people will be drawn to us. I realized that this greatly applies to motherhood that as we make every aspect of our lives a holy place, we will always be prepared to teach our children by the Spirit in any situation.
Our Stake President spoke about the Lord being mindful of each of us. One of the quotes that struck me yesterday was by President Ezra Taft Benson: "men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends, and pour out peace. Whoever will lose his life in the service of God will find eternal life."
I love that but sometimes forget it. As I work diligently as a wife, mother, and Young Women's President, I will be blessed now and eternally. Sometimes I can only focus on the stress and busy-ness of now and not realize the blessings that are in store for me. I just need to remember that the Lord will make up the difference when I have done my best.
In other news: I finally got Sam to go to Ikea with me. For the year that Ikea has been here, he has wanted nothing to do with it. So, I was a little shocked on Saturday when he actually agreed to go. When we got there he was a little intimidated by the amount of cars in the parking lot ( he generally avoids big crowds) but as we started looking around, he realized what all the fuss was about. He actually admitted to me that he thought it was an awesome place! We ended up buying two shelving units to hold the myriad of Legos that our boys have accumulated. We needed a better storage solution (or ANY storage solution, for that matter). Curtis actually put both shelves together by himself, well, Sam had to step in a few times by for the most part, it was all Curtis!
Check him out with his completed shelf! I think this kid has a future as an architect or engineer. he loves to figure out how things work and how to put them together. He's a pretty cool kid!Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Blog Funk
Anyone else sick of seeing that picture of Curtis? Sheesh.
I have kind of been in a blog funk lately. I've thought of blogging several times but every time I sat down to do it, I just didn't have the energy. I'm not especially feeling it right now but I had to do something!
Things have been a little stressful on the church calling front. As most of you know, I'm the stake Young Womens president. About 40% of the year,it is a pretty mellow calling. A meeting here, an activity there. Then comes Standard's Night, Girls' Camp, Youth Conference, Opening Social, etc. And the craziness sets in. This year, the stress is about 10 times worse!
For Youth Conference we are doing a Pioneer Trek and started planning awhile ago but had no real concrete plans except the date and place. Then our Stake YM's presidency got released so its like we are starting over with the planning. Thank Goodness for us, the new President is one of my favorite men in our stake. He is close to my dad's age and goes to Girls' Camp every year as the priesthood chaperon. He is awesome. I finally feel a little relief about this whole Trek thing. Oh, and because I have a nursing baby, I'm planning a Trek I can't participate in! Bummer!
A few months ago, I went to a meeting with the Stake Presidency and all the Bishops in my stake. We have a pretty small youth group and some of the kids are really suffering from the lack of a structured program or the strength of a bigger group. So the Stake Pres. proposed that we combine all the youth in the stake for weekly Mutual activities. That way, the age groups can split up and have more than 2 or 3 in their group. Several more meetings have followed and I've had a few stressed phone calls from parents or young women leaders. Finally on Sunday, the program was presented to all the youth, parents and leaders in the Stake. I think it went well and am excited to get the program up and running in the coming weeks. After that meeting we went straight into a Trek meeting so all the youth and parents could be there together and hear the plans. My presidency and I kind of took charge of that and it worked out fine.
Last Tuesday, Sam was called to be on the High Council so right before our 2 youth meetings Sunday afternoon, he was ordained a High Priest and set apart. He is nervous about the calling but also excited for the learning opportunities he will have.
So, Sunday afternoon, I was feeling pretty relaxed that all these things were taken care of. Then came Monday afternoon...
We had a very capable Girls' Camp Director called that already had a ton planned before we even had a meeting with her. So, I wasn't feeling too stressed about that. Yesterday I got a call from her telling me she just found out she has some medical problems and may not be able to go to Camp! Yikes. So, we have to call an assistant that can take over the whole thing if need be. The stress is starting to creep back in.
I think this year I might lower the mellow percentage to 25...
I have kind of been in a blog funk lately. I've thought of blogging several times but every time I sat down to do it, I just didn't have the energy. I'm not especially feeling it right now but I had to do something!
Things have been a little stressful on the church calling front. As most of you know, I'm the stake Young Womens president. About 40% of the year,it is a pretty mellow calling. A meeting here, an activity there. Then comes Standard's Night, Girls' Camp, Youth Conference, Opening Social, etc. And the craziness sets in. This year, the stress is about 10 times worse!
For Youth Conference we are doing a Pioneer Trek and started planning awhile ago but had no real concrete plans except the date and place. Then our Stake YM's presidency got released so its like we are starting over with the planning. Thank Goodness for us, the new President is one of my favorite men in our stake. He is close to my dad's age and goes to Girls' Camp every year as the priesthood chaperon. He is awesome. I finally feel a little relief about this whole Trek thing. Oh, and because I have a nursing baby, I'm planning a Trek I can't participate in! Bummer!
A few months ago, I went to a meeting with the Stake Presidency and all the Bishops in my stake. We have a pretty small youth group and some of the kids are really suffering from the lack of a structured program or the strength of a bigger group. So the Stake Pres. proposed that we combine all the youth in the stake for weekly Mutual activities. That way, the age groups can split up and have more than 2 or 3 in their group. Several more meetings have followed and I've had a few stressed phone calls from parents or young women leaders. Finally on Sunday, the program was presented to all the youth, parents and leaders in the Stake. I think it went well and am excited to get the program up and running in the coming weeks. After that meeting we went straight into a Trek meeting so all the youth and parents could be there together and hear the plans. My presidency and I kind of took charge of that and it worked out fine.
Last Tuesday, Sam was called to be on the High Council so right before our 2 youth meetings Sunday afternoon, he was ordained a High Priest and set apart. He is nervous about the calling but also excited for the learning opportunities he will have.
So, Sunday afternoon, I was feeling pretty relaxed that all these things were taken care of. Then came Monday afternoon...
We had a very capable Girls' Camp Director called that already had a ton planned before we even had a meeting with her. So, I wasn't feeling too stressed about that. Yesterday I got a call from her telling me she just found out she has some medical problems and may not be able to go to Camp! Yikes. So, we have to call an assistant that can take over the whole thing if need be. The stress is starting to creep back in.
I think this year I might lower the mellow percentage to 25...
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
OXYMORON
Last night at 11:30 watching The Biggest Loser while licking clean the inner workings of the chocolate fountain that we had used for Young Women.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Good news!
Why is it so hard for me to take the time to post? I don't know...just lazy I guess.
Yesterday we finally went to have our ultrasound and guess what? We are having a GIRL!!!
I'm still a little in shock...Sam is from a family of 4 boys with 8 of the 11 grandchildren being boys so I didn't think we had a chance of having a girl. But, we got a very good look and it is definitely
not a boy! Noah was so excited, he just started jumping up and down saying "I was right! I was right! I was right!" It took Curtis a minute to warm up to the idea but then he was very happy.
Sam is already stressed thinking about having to deal with a teenage girl*(see paragraph below) but I told him he has several years before he needs to worry about that...of course, as soon as she is born I'm sure she will have Sam wrapped around her little finger!
Two weeks ago Sam and I both went to Girls Camp. Sam went on an overnight hike with the older girls and came home saying "Girls are so weird! The talk and scream and giggle all the time! They were putting on lipgloss before they went to bed!" Before his trip to camp, he was hoping our baby was a girl but he got a little glimpse of what our future could hold and changed his mind! I went up on Wednesday and stayed till the end on Friday. The camp we went to is owned by the Church and is called the Heber Valley Camp. It is beautiful and has great facilities. They discourage pregnant women from coming unless you are able to participate in all the activities and I knew I wouldn't be able to handle the hike so I went up the day after. I really didn't want to miss camp, my counselors worked so hard to plan and execute Camp and I wanted to be able to be there to help and support them. It was a lot of work but the Young Women were so appreciative of everything and were so cute and fun. Our theme was "Daughters of a King" and at the beginning of the week we gave them a charm bracelet with a charm for Virtue on it with the scripture reference D&C 121:45. Then everyday, we did a little devotional and gave them another charm to add to their bracelet. They loved this! The charms we gave them were Virtue, an oil lamp, Salt Lake Temple, a Sheild, a Crown. I got all the charms for so cheap from http://www.charmingldsgifts.com/. Each charm was only .69! I've seen several of the Young Women since camp and most of them have been wearing their bracelets. Hopefully they will treasure it and remember their importance and worth as a daughter of God.
Well, dinner is ready so I better wrap up...I have starving kids!
Yesterday we finally went to have our ultrasound and guess what? We are having a GIRL!!!
I'm still a little in shock...Sam is from a family of 4 boys with 8 of the 11 grandchildren being boys so I didn't think we had a chance of having a girl. But, we got a very good look and it is definitely
not a boy! Noah was so excited, he just started jumping up and down saying "I was right! I was right! I was right!" It took Curtis a minute to warm up to the idea but then he was very happy.
Sam is already stressed thinking about having to deal with a teenage girl*(see paragraph below) but I told him he has several years before he needs to worry about that...of course, as soon as she is born I'm sure she will have Sam wrapped around her little finger!
Two weeks ago Sam and I both went to Girls Camp. Sam went on an overnight hike with the older girls and came home saying "Girls are so weird! The talk and scream and giggle all the time! They were putting on lipgloss before they went to bed!" Before his trip to camp, he was hoping our baby was a girl but he got a little glimpse of what our future could hold and changed his mind! I went up on Wednesday and stayed till the end on Friday. The camp we went to is owned by the Church and is called the Heber Valley Camp. It is beautiful and has great facilities. They discourage pregnant women from coming unless you are able to participate in all the activities and I knew I wouldn't be able to handle the hike so I went up the day after. I really didn't want to miss camp, my counselors worked so hard to plan and execute Camp and I wanted to be able to be there to help and support them. It was a lot of work but the Young Women were so appreciative of everything and were so cute and fun. Our theme was "Daughters of a King" and at the beginning of the week we gave them a charm bracelet with a charm for Virtue on it with the scripture reference D&C 121:45. Then everyday, we did a little devotional and gave them another charm to add to their bracelet. They loved this! The charms we gave them were Virtue, an oil lamp, Salt Lake Temple, a Sheild, a Crown. I got all the charms for so cheap from http://www.charmingldsgifts.com/. Each charm was only .69! I've seen several of the Young Women since camp and most of them have been wearing their bracelets. Hopefully they will treasure it and remember their importance and worth as a daughter of God.
Well, dinner is ready so I better wrap up...I have starving kids!
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