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?

Young Women Camp 2012

When I got released from YW and called into Relief Society I was sad (and I'll be honest, a tiny bit relieved) that I wouldn't be spending an entire week at Young Women camp. I told my friend Jill (the Young Women's president) that she had better invite our presidency up as they have in the past for FHE on Monday night, or we might find a way to crash their party. She graciously invited us to come and we had a blast.

It was the 100 year anniversary of Young Women camp this year! To help the Young Women in our ward catch a bit of the vision of that first camp, we (mostly my cute counselor Jacque, who is next to me in the photo) planned a skit of four beautiful Beehives that attended the camp. We all had names that started with "B" so the photo is (left to right) Beulah, Betty, Blanche, and Bernice. (I was Bernice because that was my great-grandmother's name, who was even a young woman during that era.) We dressed up in period clothes and found hats or hairstyles to look like we waltzed in from Camp Liberty Glen in 1912. We even sang the song "To the Canyon, ho! ho!" and it was lovely. We included all sorts of information from the first camp at Liberty Glen and random facts and lingo from 1912. The girls thought it was hilarious... and we had a game show quiz at the end. It was so fun to be with them... there is such a wonderful spirit at Heber Valley Camp and any time you have a group of girls and leaders gathered there are sure to be lots of laughs. For dessert we served fancy Oreo cupcakes to celebrate Camp's birthday (did you know that Oreos were first introduced by Nabisco in 1912?).

We loved our time at camp!

Relief Society

We went on a really fun vacation during Spring Break to San Diego... photos to come at a later date, hopefully not too far off in the future.

The day we returned home from our trip I received a new assignment in our church. I had been working with the cute Beehives (12 and 13 year old girls) for the last year and a half. I loved it. I love them. I finally felt like I knew what I was doing and felt like I had a connection with each of the girls. I guess that's when change usually comes, right?

I am humbled and overwhelmed at my new responsibility and in the last few weeks I've had some pretty intense growing pains as I try to figure out how to accomplish all that needs to be done. I love Relief Society and I love the women in our ward... and I will give this calling everything I can.

My bishop told me many wonderful things in my setting apart blessing, but the one that stood out above everything else was the simple statement, "You cannot do this work alone." There have been so many big and little things that remind me of that every day. I cannot do this without the Savior. I cannot do it without the guidance of the Spirit. I cannot do it without Ryan's support and patience. I cannot do this without the leadership and work of my counselors and secretary. I cannot do it without the help and participation of every single sister in our ward.  I am so grateful I don't have to do this alone.