A Princess Am I

Broken Links

2011-09-04T20:57:00.000-07:00

If you are here trying to access some of the materials, I am so sorry but many of the links are broken. The server they were being hosted on is no longer there and most of the documents were lost. I have all of them archived on external harddrives, but it will probably take me a couple of months (at least) to find them all and get the links redone. I am so sorry for the inconvenience. Thank you for your understanding!

Welcome to Young Women!

2009-03-06T15:59:00.000-08:00

So, this year we have just two girls who are turning 12. One last month, and one this month. And, actually, none of my current beehives leave until September! Our poor Mia Maid counselor though - she loses both of her Mia Maids before the summer ends. She'll have nobody for a couple of months, while I'll have 7 girls! But I digress.

I am really excited for getting these new Beehives excited about Young Women and Personal Progress and all that. So, my advisor (have I mentioned how much I love my advisor? She's marvelous!) and I decided to visit both of them and their parents in their home to explain everything and bring them a "Welcome to Young Women" gift bag with everything they'll need. They're pretty cute, if I do say so myself. And I do! (Plus both of these girls are the oldest girls in their families, so this is all new to all of them.)

In addition, we also gave them a cute journal that we had leftover from New Beginnings last year. Inside the bag was a True to the Faith book, For the Strength of Youth, a Personal Progress book and journal. And the wallet versions of For the Strength of Youth book and the Young Women theme. We also included President Hinckley's To the Parents and Leaders of Youth booklet, and the user's guide for the video of the same title. We didn't include the video, but it does list all of the talks on the video, so we thought it was a good resource. We also included a tiara. (Because every girl needs a tiara, but more about that in a minute.)

We sat down and explained the Personal Progress program and told the new Beehive about some of the projects the girls have done and what we've done as a class - like the FHE in a Jar kits, then teaching FHE and memorizing The Family - A Proclamation the the World (these were two separate activities). We explained to the parents that we wanted them to know everything that we are doing in Young Women so they can support and help their daughter to make and keep goals. We told them about mutual - when and where we meet and what kinds of activities we do. We discovered that the Bishop already gave our new Beehive a For Strength of Youth book when he interviewed her, which worked out perfectly because it is very important for parents to have their own copy, so we designated that one for the parents.

Now for the very special tiara. Acutally, this whole thing kind of grew around this. I saw them on clearance at Claire's for only $5. Although, I've seen some at Wal-Mart on the wedding aisle near the crafts for not much more than that. So, I saw the tiaras and bought them on the spot. I'm sure so many feel the same as me, that what you teach and what you feel is important for the girls to know revolves so much around the experiences you had as a teenager and preteen. Well, that and what the spirit inspires you to teach and instill in these girls. :) Well, for me, a very important moment in my life and one that will always hold a very special place in my heart is when I went through the Temple to receive my own endowments. In fact, every time I speak about it I get teary-eyed and even just thinking about it and writing about it, I get a little choked up. Anyway, this particular experience is so special to me not because it changed my life, but because it was then that it was confirmed to me that I actually was a princess! I had always been told in Young Women and at EFY and other experiences in my youth that I was a princess because Heavenly Father was literally my father and that I could grow up to be like Him (albeit in Eternity). And I always believed it, but when I went through the Temple that first time, I suddenly knew it. It didn't change who I was, because I was already a good person who had been preparing herself for the Temple her entire life, it changed the way I thought about myself. And that wasn't even such a dramatic change - not a 180 or anything like it. I always had self-confidence (sometimes more than I needed!), in fact, I think it humbled me more than anything. I am mean, who was I to be endowed with such beautiful potential?

Anyway, in fewer words and hopefully in a way for a newly 12 year old girl to apply, I tried to convey all those feelings. This year, and really this new General Young Women Presidency, want so much to focus on getting these girls worthy to go the Temple and no goal could be closer to my heart than this. So, I hope that by really helping the girls to understand that they truly are princesses and what it means to act and treat others that way will help them to live better lives and be worthy for Temple attendance, whether it be baptisms for the dead or eventually their own endowments, sealings and other work for the dead. And all this is what that tiara represents.

So, sorry about the long personal experience, but truly, I love these girls and love the job I have been given to do with them - and I love the Temple. And I love tiaras!

New Beginnings

2009-02-13T11:45:00.000-08:00

So, I was in charge of New Beginnings. Yikes! It was quite the project. But we had it this last Wednesday and everything went smoothly. I guess you could say our theme was the Mutual theme scripture for this year: 1 Timothy 4:12.

I asked the Beehives what they wanted to do to help. One of the girls offered to do the table display - which I told her she could use for her 10 hour project. She did a good job. Two of the other girls made cupcakes and another girl made note cards with each of the Values, their scriptures and quotes on them for a part of our program.

We gave the girls their invitations in church a couple of weeks beforehand, and mailed out invites to their parents. We also invited our new beehives for this year and their parents. We've only got two and they will be joining us at the end of this month and in the middle of March. So, we figured it would be good to have them there. And as a special treat for them, our secretary who used to be a florist, made them adorable corsages. I think it was a nice touch.

Our program consisted of the typical opening songs and prayers. (Opening Song: "Teach Me to Walk") We had 7 of the YW introduce the values (using the cards one of the Beehives made) and each wore the corresponding color also. After that, we had a speaker talk about the new value: virtue. It was going to be our YW president, but after her daughter was in a really bad accident and ended up in the hospital just days before, I told her not to worry about it. So, I prepared and gave the talk. I really loved it too! I hadn't taken the time yet to read all the resources on the Church website yet, and reading them with the purpose of giving a talk to the YW makes things a little more meaningful. I was excited about the new value before, but now I really see it's purpose and I LOVE it! (You can find a link to the talk at the bottom.) After my talk, we had one of our Laurels who had completed her Personal Progress speak about her experience with it. She gave the parents some pointers and shared her testimony. She did a great job. Then it was time for a musical number from another of our Laurels. Our final speaker was the Bishop who spoke about the Mutual theme scripture. Our bishop is great and did a fantastic job! And then ended with a song and a prayer followed by cupcakes in the kitchen. (Closing song: "True to the Faith")

We planned a gift for the girls also, but alas, it did not make it in time. So, we will give it to them on Sunday. We got vinyl lettering for them saying "Be thou an example" for them to put on the mirrors, or in their cars - wherever. Because we didn't have their gifts, I did make a handout from one of the quotes in my talk (which I mounted on black cardstock). You can find a link to that also. And I just want to note that I made the invitations (find link at bottom), programs (no link, since it has the girls full names on it), and the handouts all matching. It was lovely!

Overall, I give the night a B+. It went well, but I think I've figured out how to do things better and perhaps make things more interesting, if I ever do this again. (Not that I'm volunteering!)

And, of course, I remembered to bring my camera, but forgot to take pictures. Doh!

Talk on virtue (.doc)

New Beginnings Invitations (.pdf)

New Beginnings Invitations (.ai)

New Beginnings Handout (.pdf)

New Beginnings Handout (.ai)

FHE in a Jar

2009-01-29T08:57:00.000-08:00

Last night for our mutual activity, we put together FHE in a Jar kits. I must admit, they turned out pretty dang cute. I got the original document of strips from JennySmith.net. But when I opened the word document, the formatting came up really bad, so I copied and pasted it into an Excel spread sheet and fixed the formatting to make it nice and uniform. Each strip contains a song, scripture(s), and a question to discuss. So easy! This would also be good for scripture study/journalling. I thought to make it a complete FHE there should be treats! So, I got on allrecipes.com and searched for "easy treats" and "easy desserts." So, you have 7 pages of FHE lesson strips, and 5 pages of easy recipe strips. I printed the lesson strips on white paper, and the treat strips on colored paper so you could tell the two apart and pick one of each. I also made some cute tags to put on the outside. In Jenny Smith's document, the first page is a tag and instructions. Just so you know.

I think they turned out pretty cute and I hope the girls use them! I know I will! Plus, under Good Works in their Personal Progress books is a goal about teaching Family Home Evening.

FHE in a Jar Lesson strips (.xls - Excel spreadsheet)

FHE in a Jar Lesson strips (.pdf - Adobe Acrobat)

Easy Treats strips for FHE in a Jar (.doc - Word document)

Easy Treats strips for FHE in a Jar (.pdf - Adobe Acrobat)

FHE in a Jar Tags (.ai - Adobe Illustrator)

FHE in a Jar Tags (.pdf - Adobe Acrobat)

The original source of FHE in a Jar on JennySmith.net.

Manual 1 - Lesson 4: The Holy Ghost

2009-01-28T20:09:00.000-08:00

I got to teach last week! My advisor was speaking in church and didn't want to have to worry about preparing a lesson also, so she asked if I would mind teaching. Hooray! The lesson was on the Holy Ghost. I really liked the lesson suggestion to have the girls write down the chalkboard discussion and take the paper home to put by their beds. That way, when they say their prayers in the morning and at night, they will be reminded of the things they need to do to be WORTHY of the companionship of the Holy Ghost and also of the ways that the Holy Ghost can BLESS their lives. I personally felt the Spirit telling me that if the girls would pay attention to the ways the Holy Ghost can bless their lives their lives and if they would look for those blessings at the end of everyday, that they would see those blessing and miracles and that it would be a great experience for them. I hope they do it! I need to do it also!

So, here are those handouts that I made. If the design in the background is too light when you print it, let me know. I print using a color laser printer and I have noticed that it prints significantly darker than it looks on my screen or when printed by an ink jet printer (photo or otherwise). Again, there are two files - the original done on Adobe Illustrator and a .pdf file that can viewed using Adobe Acrobat.

Holy Ghost handout (.ai)

Holy Ghost handout (.pdf)

Babysitting Workshop Mutual Activity

2009-01-28T19:54:00.000-08:00

For our combined YW activity last week we did a babysitting workshop. My advisor put this together and did a great job! We gave mini classes on some of the basic stuff - like how and when to change a diaper, how to soothe and swaddle a baby, and what to do in emergency or stressful situations. We put together little first aid kits with hand santizer (in fun colors and scents - you can get them at Target), bandaids (with cartoon characters on them), and alcohol wipes. We had a baby changing race (the picture is of two of our leaders getting in on the action). And we put together file folder games to put into babysitting kits. I think it went pretty well. (Even though none of our Laurels showed up - turkeys!)

Christmas Party

2009-01-28T19:42:00.000-08:00

This year, for our Christmas party we did a white elephant gift exchange, made ornaments, ate yuumy Caramel Marshmallow Corn (recipe at bottom), and gave the girls their Christmas presents.

The ornaments were Christmas trees made out of little teeny tiny spools. My advisor was the one who put that together. She did a great job. I'm sure you could Google it and find a tutorial, but as I was late and didn't get to make one, I am little or no help.

As for our gifts to the girls this year, I am quite proud of us. I think they turned out so super cute. We gave the girls treasure boxes to put all of their handouts and things that they get in YW's in. We got pretty photo boxes at the craft store for 50% off! We were just going to get plain brown boxes and paint them or do something to dress them up, but this way was cheaper. We did make pretty little ribbon flowers for the outside by the girl's names. And on the inside, we put a plain piece of paper and a tiny little binder clip glued to the inside of the lid so that it could be propped up at the end of the box and whatever handout was their favorite could be displayed. We had a lot of fun as a presidency one morning putting all these together. We also included some yummy peppermint hot chocolate. The hot chocolate is sort of a tradition for YW Christmas presents.

-----

Caramel Marshmallow Corn

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 sticks butter

4 cups mini marshmallows

Combine ingredients in a large microwave safe bowl. Heat in microwave for 45 seconds - 1 minute. Take out and stir. Continue heating and stirring in 30 second intervals until most of the sugar is dissolved.

Add 2 bags of microwave popcorn and stir till coated.

* Note: I have tried it with less butter (like 1 - 1 1/2 sticks) and only brown sugar (one cup - unpacked) and it was still really good. I also think adding nuts makes it super yummy. My favorite is cashews!

Contributors

2009-01-16T09:24:00.000-08:00

Obviously, I have not been very good about posting regularly. I do have a lot of stuff that I am going to post very soon, but know that I am working on getting more contributors so that you all can get more ideas and stuff. And feel free to email me with anything that you would like to contribute.

Wow - Christmastime!

2008-12-11T05:29:00.001-08:00

Sorry we haven't posted in awhile, it's a busy time of the year. Don't worry though, we will be back with a renewed gusto come mid January or so.

I thought I would tell you quickly about the Christmas gifts we are doing for our girls. Almost every week the girls get pretty little handouts from our lessons. We put a lot of thought and effort into these little handouts and the girls seem to really enjoy them. So, we thought we would give the girls little treasure boxes to keep all their handouts in. We got wooden boxes that we will paint and decorate and maybe put a little poem about a treasure on - or maybe the princess poem. Anyway, we thought we were pretty cute. When we get together to make them, I will take pictures and post them for you all to see.

What are you doing for gifts?

Faith/Knowledge Value Project

2008-11-30T19:57:00.000-08:00

When I was 19 or so, the Stake President of the stake I lived in challenged all the members of the stake to memorize "The Family - A Proclamation to the World." My dad, being bishop at the time, encouraged us to do it as a family, and we did! It was such a good experience and I learned so much about the essential and most basic principles of family and marriage. One of the Faith Value Projects is to memorize "The Living Christ," which I think would be a great experience also, but we decided as a class to memorize "The Proclamation." A couple of the girls already have a Faith Value Project done, so it can also be done under Knowledge. We just started at mutual a couple of weeks ago (we had a personal progress night), but have been practicing every Sunday during the first couple of minutes of class. It's fun because we are all doing it together and my advisor is bringing treats for every paragraph they get done. We're able to talk about the things we learn and memorize and incorporate so much of that into our lessons also... And if a 12 year-old can do it, so can you!

PS - It was Pres. Hall of the Tempe, AZ South Stake.

Mutual Activity

2008-11-28T08:15:00.001-08:00

We had a really fun activity a couple of weeks ago where we embellished beanie hats. We used felt flowers, leaves, stars, and hearts and sewed them to the hats with embroidery thread. We also had extra felt and scissors so the girls could get as creative as they wanted. There were some really cute things!

Fifth Sundays

2008-11-28T08:11:00.000-08:00

Well, I haven't been teaching much lately, so no new lessons to post, but I thought I would post this GREAT idea. On the fifth Sundays in our ward, we have started doing something so that EVERYONE can attend the special 3rd hour combined meeting. We have our Young Men and Young Women teach Primary and Nursery. That frees up the YM and YW leaders and teachers AND the Primary/Nursery leaders and teachers. Not only does it help everyone to feel apart of Priesthood and Relief Society, but it is a great way to prepare the youth for teaching callings when they enter adulthood. Just thought I would share that with you!

YW Manual 3 Lesson #41 - Being Dependable

2008-10-26T15:35:00.000-07:00

This Lesson Reminded me of a seminar I went to almost 10 years ago. The theme was "Be Your Word." The lecturer talked about Dependability and Integrity in the context of work mostly, but it was such a good message that it has stuck with me all these years. I have tried to be the type of person who you can trust to do what they say they will. I have tried to be honest in ALL my dealings. In fact, more than once I have had to return to Wal-Mart to pay for a pack of gum, or spool of ribbon which was hiding in the basket and didn't get paid for. Sometimes I get a funny look or comment, to which I always reply that "hell isn't worth 97 cents" - for which I usually get a laugh and nod of the head. But seriously, are we compromising what we know to be right and true for something as trivial as a proverbial pack of gum? I hope not, and I tried to convey that to my girls. I think they got it.

Lesson #41 Handout "Be Your Word" Download (.pdf)

Lesson #41 Handout "Be Your Word" Download (.ai)

YW Manual 3 Lesson #39 Recognizing Our Individual Worth

2008-10-24T18:27:00.000-07:00

So, recently they called me an advisor, so I no longer teach every Sunday. Which I am kind of sad about, but it has been nice to have someone else to rely on also, especially since I just had a baby a month ago. I will still teach every once in awhile and I still take care of mutual activities. Last week and this week though, I get to teach again because of a family emergency that my advisor had to leave town for. My prayers are with her and her family and I don't want to be insensitive to her situation, but I am grateful for the opportunity to teach my girls again.

This week was another one of those lessons that I consider to be one of the best, funnest lessons of the year. I get to talk about being a princess!! So, for handouts this week, I used the poem which was the inspiration for this blog and also gave each of the girls a pink foam tiara to wear. It was marvelous!! So, here are files of the handout I made. You'll notice there are 3 different versions. I couldn't decide which I liked best, so I made all three and let the girls pick. They turned out even better than I planned. When printed on my HP color laser printer, the colors were so vibrant! And by the way, these are quarter page sized (300 dpi resolution so you can get a crisp picture when printed).

Green Handout (pdf)

Pink Handout (pdf)

Black Handout (pdf)

YW Manual 3 Lesson #35 Dating Decisions

2008-10-24T18:03:00.000-07:00

This is one of those lessons that, as a young woman, you look forward to every year. One thing that I didn't do with this lesson that my YW leaders seemed to always have us do is make a list of all the qualities that you want in a husband. I did that many times as a young woman, and while I still have some of those lists, my husband does not fill all the requirements, BUT he does have many other qualities that weren't listed. So... I modified that general idea by telling the girls that they should base their lists on the scriptures. I do have a list in the back of my scriptures entitled "The Man I Want to Marry." Under this title are a list of scriptures which include good qualities for a husband and father. This is a much more realistic and righteous list than those that I made when I was younger. And after a little while, I realized that many of these qualities I was listing for my husband were things that I needed to work on. So, I started another list entitled "The Woman I Want to Be." This exercise was the most fulfilling of it's kind that I had ever done, so I made bookmarks for the girls with these titles on either side and a series of lines for them to fill in different scriptures as they study their scriptures through the years. I told them to make a scriptural list of qualities they wanted in a husband. But told them that they needed to be a certain type of girl so that they would be able to attract that type of boy. I solidified that with an experience of my own:

While my husband was on his mission (obviously this was before we were married) I wrote to him. Now, you need to understand that we did not date before his mission, I was writing to him as friends. In one of my letters, I asked him was made him decide to serve a mission. He was the only member of the Church in his family and didn't have great support for his mission (if any at all). He told me a few different reasons and finished with this: "And besides, what Charmaine [insert my maiden name] would marry a boy who didn't serve a mission?" I was of course honored and encouraged my girls to also be the type of girl who would encourage others (especially their future dates/husband) to be the very best that they could.

Overall, the lesson turned out great!

Here are the sources for the bookmark and a picture of the finished product:

Lesson #35 Dating Decisions Bookmark Handout Download (.pdf) 1

Lesson #35 Dating Decisions Bookmark Handout Download (.pdf) 2

Lesson #35 Dating Decisions Bookmark Handout Download (.ai) 1

Lesson #35 Dating Decisions Bookmark Handout Download (.ai) 2

Lesson #34 Avoiding Dishonesty

2008-10-24T17:59:00.000-07:00

I don't seem to have much that I did with lesson - or much that I saved anyway. What I do have is a picture of my handout, it seems I didn't save the document though.

Lesson #32 Service in the Community

2008-10-24T17:53:00.000-07:00

This lesson is sort of the temporal counterpart to the last lesson, as it talks about service that can (and should) be done in the community. It's a good idea to also have a follow-up mutual activity involving service.

Lesson #32 Handout Download (.doc)

Here is a picture of the finished product:

Lesson #31 Service in the Church

2008-10-24T14:51:00.000-07:00

Another great lesson! This lesson corresponds perfectly with m favorite story from the New Testament: the story of the loaves and fishes. What I love about this story is that John tells us that "a lad" offered the five loaves and two fishes to feed the multitude of five thousand. I imagine that he was doing the "grocery shopping" with his family and on their way home, were attracted to Christ and what he was teaching. When asked if anyone had any food to feed the crowd gathered, this family offered all they had with them. It is then that the miracle happens. Christ blesses the food and then HE magnifies it to bless five thousand. But that's not where it ends! What is leftover becomes the "icing on the cake" - twelve baskets!

So, how does the correspond with service in the Church?? Well, when we offer all that we have to the Lord, HE magnifies our efforts and we become the instrument in His hands to bless the lives of others. And not only is that a blessing beyond compare - to witness His miracles and get to be a part of it - but, what we receive in return, is so much more than what we gave!

So, along with the lesson, I shared this with the girls. And have used it in other lessons also - it applies to so much! Any calling we have, any effort that we make, when we rely on the Lord, He magnifies our efforts and we are blessed because of it.

So, here are the notes for this lesson: (I don't seem to have any handouts made for this lesson)

Lesson #31 Notes (.doc)

Lesson #30 Scripture Study

2008-10-24T13:23:00.000-07:00

I love the scriptures! Now I admit, it is both a strength and a weakness with me. Although I love the scriptures, I have a hard time being regular with my study of them. But this was a great lesson to remind me of how important it is to be regular about it. I'm so lucky I get to give these great lessons! Here are the handouts I made for this. It's Elder Hunter's advice on scripture study as found in the Seminary Book of Mormon study guide. There is a front and back to the bookmark, and after I printed it up, I laminated it for extra stability. The notes, I made a copy for each of the girls to be used for future reference or FHE, or whatever.

Scripture Study Bookmark Download (.pdf)

Scripture Study Bookmark Download (.indd)

Notes from Lesson (.doc)

I'm back

2008-10-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

OK, I wasn't sure if I was going to keep this blog going or not. But I decided to go ahead and do it. I really do love this calling and I love my girls and all the fun stuff I get to do, so I thought "to heck with it" and decided that if nothing else, I needed this record of what I'm doing. So, let me know if there is anything you would like to add or would like to see.

Much love,

Charmaine

Lesson 29 - "A Change of Heart"

2008-08-01T17:09:00.000-07:00

So, my first lesson... I typed up some of my notes from the lesson so the girls could have a copy to take home and use for FHE or whatever. I always appreciated having references for lessons. I don't know if I cared too much as a 12 year old, but I did anyway. And I also made some fun little handouts. If I get ambitious tomorrow, I have a great idea for scripture stickers. We'll see though.

Here is a link to the files for this lesson:

Lesson 29 - A Change of Heart

Here's a picture of the finished handout, it's a lousy picture, if my scanner were set up yet, I would have scanned it. Sorry!

Why?

2008-08-01T17:05:00.000-07:00

Well, I was recently called to be the 2nd counselor in the Young Women's in our Ward and it's the first time I've served in Young Women's. I'm so excited and I already love the girls - even more than that though - I like them! There is no teacher, so I'll be teaching lessons too - which I am thrilled about! I love to teach. And I figured, since I am putting all this time into all this stuff, I should put it out there for others. I know there are tons of other websites that have tons of resources, and I'm sure I'll be using those too, but I really like the stuff that I do myself. So, here it is if anyone else wants to use it. And please feel free to offer any suggestions!