New Beginnings 2016

Today after work was a mad dash. I left early to go get Autumn from daycare and take her to Activity Days. While she was at her leader's house learning about gardening, I went over to the church to start setting up for New Beginnings. Luckily there were a few young men there that were watching some kids while their Mom's were busy doing Scouts. They helped me set up 50 chairs, and I promised them I'd give them all treats to thank them.

I got as much done as I could and then rushed to go get Autumn from Activity Days. I dropped her & the other 2 girls off at their house, ran through Taco Bell to grab some dinner, and went to pick up a projector. I had planned on just doing the slideshow on the TV, but it was way too small. I got to the church about 6:15 and the other YW Presidency leaders were there and we all got to work putting together the refreshment table.

We kept it simple and did bundt cakes and finger food desserts. For our theme we used the 2016 youth theme of pressing forward and focused on the part about "loving God and all men." On the table we put a sign that said, "Nothing BUNDT love." We kept things super simple, which is just fine by me. We all work and don't have time to go over the top w/ decorations.

We gave each girl a little gift box (you can get 8 for one dollar that the $1 store) and we filled them w/ M&M's. I revamped this Christmas poem to make it applicable to our New Beginnings theme. It says:

As you hold these candies in your hand and turn them, 

You will see the M becomes a W and E and a 3.

Those could mean so many things like 3 degrees of glory. 

Or EM for Eternal Marriage which is a great way to start your family’s story! 

EW could possibly stand for Eternal Witness, 

And WW is the Word of Wisdom, which brings to mind good fitness. 

So as you eat these candies or share them with a friend, 

Remember to “press forward with a steadfastness” and never let that end. 

Since there is so much information to cover, we like to present the info in a slideshow. That helps it to move along faster and not be quite so boring. I'm thankful for Hannah stepping up and conducting the meeting at the last minute. We also had a lot of YW that didn't show up, so other girls filled in and read the absentee's slides.

One of the best parts of New Beginnings is introducing all the girls that will be turning 12 this year and moving up to Beehives. We have 7 girls (one wasn't here tonight) that will be moving up. We read a little slide about each of them w/ info such as their favorite color, candy, church song, scripture hero, and what they want to be when they grow up. We presented each of them w/ their favorite candy when we read their slide. I'm so thankful for Sis. S & Sis. C that work w/ the Beehives. They are so loving and fun and welcoming. I hope these girls are as excited to move up to Young Women's as we are to have them!

We have to get a group picture at each New Beginnings, b/c it's tradition and we also include these pics in our end-of-the-year slideshow. Plus, it's so fun to go back and see how the girls grow and change from year to year.

After getting a nice/serious one, we like to do a fun/crazy pic.

I can't even express how much I love and admire and appreciate these 3 women. We make such a great team and work super well together as a presidency. It's true what they say, "team work makes the dream work." After we took this pic the ladies wanted to see how it turned out. I started laughing when I looked at it, b/c I look like a GIANT! I don't realize how tall I am until I see pictures that show the height difference. Oh, well. I love being a tall Amazonian woman.

After everyone had gotten refreshments and were mostly done visiting we started the cleanup process. I have no idea how other YW presidencies that go all out on decorations do it. We were there until 9:00 pm, and that was w/ a lot of clean up help from parents and YW (and Young Men that wanted to use the gym to play basketball). I'm so glad New Beginnings is over for one more year. Now we get to turn our efforts and energy towards gearing up for camp!