Monday, October 8, 2012

Faithful & Fabulous

The first weekend of September we had a Relief Society retreat... think of it as an extended Girls' Night Out with a lot of yummy food, a lot of visiting and laughs, some service, games, high adventure, a few gospel messages, and a whole lot of bonding going on between the sisters in our ward. We spent a night at HeberValley Camp where they have bunks and bathrooms (hooray for flush toilets!). Our site had a little cooking pavilion and a few picnic tables.It only lasted for 24 hours or so... some sisters came up just for Friday evening and others just for Saturday morning and afternoon. In total we had 50 sisters come for part or all of our retreat... that is just about half of the ladies in our ward. I loved that so many took the time to come!

Our focus was to help the sisters know how "Faithful & Fabulous" they truly are... we made cute notebooks out of inexpensive composition books to give to each person so they could jot down a few thoughts.  Each person brought their own dinner on Friday night and then we had a wonderful speaker that evening. She talked all about prioritizing and based her talk on one that Susan Tanner gave (first take care of my testimony, next my family, finally my calling). We ate fondue.... in the mountains... and it was wonderful!

Before bed we had a wonderful devotional by Jacque (2nd Counselor) about light and our ability to reflect the light of Christ. Then we departed to our separate cabins (we divided into Later Gators for people that wanted to stay up late, Early Birds for people who wanted to get to bed early, and Monkeys in the Middle for people who just weren't sure... ironically enough the Early Birds stayed up the latest... but got up the earliest. Go figure!) and played games until we couldn't keep our eyes open anymore.

Saturday morning we had Kneader's French toast with caramel syrup and strawberries for breakfast, then a devotional by Jessica (1st Counselor), and a little workshop about being fabulous.... not that I am an expert by any means, but we wanted to look at the basics... we are fabulous because we are daughters of God and because we have a desire to do what is right. Our vision gets obscured for so many reasons and we aren't able to see clearly who we are or what our potential is. We had each person do an acrostic poem with the word FABULOUS--they had to write a word or phrase for each letter of the word that described something positive about them. I think a lot of times we can recognize and verbalize positive traits in others, but it is hard to do that about ourselves. Finally we shared some positive affirmations about ourselves... statements that are positive that we know to be true. I loved that so many people contributed to the discussion.

We made a fun, simple little craft (stuffed pumpkins!) and then after some tidying up we walked down to the Challenge Course which included some team building exercises and a crazy-fun swing.

It was such a wonderful time to build relationships with sisters in our ward... I hope we get to do it again!

**What makes YOU fabulous?

3 comments:

Sally said...

Lisa, our ward was there that same weekend! We did a yucky challenge course that involved a high ropes course that made me shake and cry, but the retreat overall was awesome. Our stake is going there for YW camp next summer, and I"m begging to be the camp cook so I can cook in the gorgeous, industrial kitchen. :)

Kristi said...

What a GREAT and FABULOUS idea! I love everything you did. I may just have to copy that one...

The sisters are so lucky to have you! I have no doubt you touch each of their lives in a way specific to them that only you can do. It was fun to see those pictures and see just a few familiar faces.

I'm sure that was a great experience for the ladies in the ward. I love that you made them think of what they think makes them fabulous. I don't think we, as women, do that enough.

I hope you know I think you are FABULOUS! :)

emilyw said...

This sounds like so much fun! Please invite me next time, k? :)