YWIE for Sacrament Meeting

I requested about six months ago that the Young Women in our ward be allowed to do a Sacrament program for our Young Women In Excellence.  The bishop met with me about it and asked how I saw it working and how it would meet the goals and purpose of YWIE.  When I explained my vision how all the girls would be involved through musical numbers and talks showcasing their talents and PP experiences and how we'd have some posters in the foyers of the girls and their PP projects he was delighted and approved the idea. 

We had our program November 9th and it was awesome!  Our Stake YW President was there and she was all a glow about it.  She commented on how nice it was to see all the girls involved in the program.  We had 7 girls give a 2 minute talk on a value and their PP experiences related to that value, and 7 others read the scripture that corresponded with the value introducing that value before the speaker.  We had one girl draw a picture for the cover of our program, which is how she was comfortable sharing her talents and passed off a PP value experience to boot. :)  One of our laurels performed a solo on her harp that she wrote for a value project called "Road to Bethlehem" and she also bore her testimony of the program as she received her medallion that same day during the announcements of the meeting.  Three other girls completed PP goals by performing in special musical numbers that day.  We had one group song with all the girls and leaders and a few other special musical numbers
covering the talents of our girls through voice and instrument.  Our program was 48 minutes in length with the 14 girls giving a talk or reading the scripture of a value and 5 musical numbers.  (For reference, next year we'll drop the musical numbers down to more like 2-3)

I got more comments from ward members about how fun it was to see the posters with pictures of our girls and their PP experiences - they loved it!  They loved getting to know our girls this way and through the program and I think our girls really enjoyed the experience too.  It was the first time our ward has ever done anything like it and the girls were terrified.  Our lesson that Sunday was on courage and boy did they have some association with the questions about trying something new that was scary. . .like giving a talk, etc.! 

I remember my own experience many years ago in YW and how our ward did an annual Sacrament Program that the YW were responsible for, so I was a little surprised that this ward had never done it before.  Tradition is a strong factor in the church and many times things get done or don't get done just because "that's the way it's always been".  But I for one LOVED the experience of doing the program in our ward and highly recommend it.

Hugs,
Holly

Every girl participated in one way or another.  Some were comfortable being part of the choir, several agreed to give a short talk on each of the values sharing something they'd done or learned that strengthened their testimony in it, others agreed to read the value
scripture to introduce the value.  We had one girl draw a picture of young woman and we used that as the cover for our program.  Other's accompanied musical numbers on instruments and several sang in special numbers.  We had quite a few girls use some of those things for PP experiences and I was amazed listening to all of them talk about their experience afterward.  How scary it was for them to get up and do what they did but how great they felt after they'd done it, etc. The entire program was put on the girls.  The
leaders sang with them and helped come up with the general outline for the meeting, but the talks were all given by our girls.

We also had each girl work on a poster during the previous weeks of mutual. Every girl had a poster with her picture on it.  They were all different.  Some had added pictures of them doing things, others used their creativity to show the things they enjoyed or projects they had worked on throughout the year.  Everyone loved walking down the hallways of the building seeing and reading about our girls.

For our girls and our ward it was a very unifying and wonderful experience. The girls got to share their testimonies with the entire ward and the entire ward got to see their poster displays.

It went so well that everyone has been asking us when we are doing it again this year!