We had a wonderful activity last night that I wanted to share. We had a panel with the bishopric's wives. They brought their wedding pictures and dresses and had them in the room. We had a jar that the girls put questions in for them to answer - we told the girls they could ask questions about friendship, dating or marriage.

They started out by sharing their engagement stories & their wedding day and then answered the questions from the jar which were things like: How old should you be before you get your first kiss? And, how old should you be to get married?

It was really fun & spiritual and the girls absolutely loved it!

We ended with a nice dessert & gave the girls temple hangers. We told the girls to hang their them in their closet only surrounded by modest clothing so that every day when they see it they will be reminded that they are daughters of God. They will remember what they stand for and of their goal to go through the temple someday.

-Tabitha

We divided up into cars. Each car had a coin. We told the YW we were going to see if we could get to the temple and then at each intersection we would have the YW flip a coin. We would go right or left depending on the coin flip.

After driving around for awhile, we met back at the home of one of the leaders and talked about how getting to the temple cannot happen by chance - it is a choice and requires preparation. Then we watched John Bytheway's Standards Night Live. Simple, with a powerful message.

We then planned a trip to the temple for another night and had the YW dress up. We took their pictures and had a great activity on the temple grounds.

While attending a Stake Leadership Training last fall, our high councilman talked about value gardens from back in the day (lol). He recommended planting them at the different buildings around our stake.

We loved this idea and got together with the other ward in our building to do this as a combined YW activity. We purchased bulbs for flowers in the different value colors (you can see recommendations in this LDS Church News article from 1992) and spent the evening planting bulbs all around the Church in the available flowerbeds.

And now - they're popping up! I can't wait to see them bloom. I live in Northern Utah so it may be a few weeks, but they are going to be a beautiful reminder to the YW of the values!

In February, we had a Laurel class activity where the Laurels invited the Priests to a "Date Night".

One of the Laurels made cute invites for the boys, and we had simple refreshments along the Valentine theme.

To open the activity, the youth played "Do You Love Your Neighbor?" and then we had a cute young-ish married couple from our stake come and talk about creative and fun ideas for dating. They handed out 13 little trinkets that represented a different idea for a date, which they would have the youth guess about, and then the speakers would explain and expand on the ideas. As they did that, they also inserted thoughts about keeping the standards and not pairing off, as well as interacted with the youth asking questions about what was difficult about trying to date. They also gave some etiquette tips, as well.

Our Laurels & Priests combined for a group date activity night. We decided to go M&M Bowling.

We went to the local bowling alley and before each person bowled, they had to pull an M&M out of the bag and follow these rules:

Blue: Eyes Closed

Green: Backward, between your legs

Orange: Sing a primary song while you bowl

Yellow: Righties use left hand, Lefties use right hand

Brown: Granny Style

Red: Ballerina Style

We especially loved watching the priest and YM leaders bowl ballerina style!!