YW Gratitude Dinner: To thank the GREAT people in our lives!

Pick ONE person you’d like to honor and thank. This can be a family member, a school teacher, coach, friend, classmate, etc. Please try to find out their address before the activity on 11/12.

• 11/12: Planning Activity: We’ll prepare skits, write and mail invitations, and plan the dinner.
• 11/19: Dinner: We’ll honor our guests with dinner, games, and thanksgiving entertainment.

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#ShareGoodness Activity

Activity #1: Make a Profile on Mormon.org (For 14+)

STEP 1: Make sure you have an LDS account.

STEP 2: Go to http://www.mormon.org/create and click “Create a Profile with LDS Account” found at the bottom of the page. Then log in.

STEP 3: Fill out the requested information:

Hi, I’m _____

Introduction:

Demographics:

Birth:

Location:

About Me:

How I live my Faith:

Why I am a Mormon:

STEP 4: Upload a picture of yourself (from your computer or facebook, etc.). If you want, you can connect your profile to your Facebook page Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or blog.

STEP 5: Pick at least one of the question or personal stories to share more on your profile.

STEP 6: Click “Submit for Review.” You are all done! It’ll take a few days for your profile to be confirmed by the missionary department. You’ll get an email in a few days with a link to your profile!

*IF YOU ARE A BEEHIVE: I’m pretty sure Mormon.org won’t allow you to post unless you are 14. In that case, in an email, word document, or Google Doc, please type up your responses to the following items and then EMAIL them to wenholland@gmail.com. I will post your responses on our YW blog WITHOUT your names included.:

About Me:

How I live my Faith:

Why I am a Mormon:

Activity #2: Durango 1st ward YW “We Believe” video

(Modeled after this one: http://vimeo.com/105933842)

STEP 1: Take a look at the most recent General Conference talks by going to lds.org, then clicking on “Teachings” at the top and selecting “General Conference.” This will take you to a page where you can see all of the talks in the order they were given. You can use the sidebar to sort by speaker or by topic if you need help finding a quote you like.

STEP 2: Find a paragraph (or sentence or two) from a talk you really like, and copy and paste it and email or text it to yourself, write it down on paper, or memorize it.

STEP 3: Consider your testimony and think of a statement you can say for, “I believe....”

STEP 4: Go to the camera and get recorded while reading your paragraph from the General Conference talks.

STEP 5: Get recorded saying your “I believe…” statement.

Activity #3: Mormonads/Designs

STEP 1: Look at some of the classic Mormonads found here: https://www.lds.org/media-library/images/categories/mormonads?lang=eng

STEP 2: Think of an idea for your own Mormonad or Quote design. Think of quotes (like the one you liked from General Conference), scriptures, phrases, or advice you think would work well for an ad.

STEP 3: Go to https://www.canva.com/ and create an account by signing up with your email address and a new password.

STEP 4: At the top of the page, click one of the options under “Start a New Design” to get started. You probably want to make a “Poster”, but it doesn’t really matter what format you choose.

STEP 5: Get designing! It’s super easy to use, but click on the sidebar to choose different backgrounds, images, and text.

Share Goodness: 
https://www.lds.org/church/share/goodness

We Believe YW example: 

http://vimeo.com/105933842

Mormon.org videos:

• Jenna Kim Jones: 

http://www.mormon.org/jenna

• Brandon Flowers: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PF0h7oqUEQ

• Athelia Leseuer: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-PK85LN1-8

• I’m a Young Woman and I Believe: 

http://youtu.be/V1dqmBc-U74

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#ShareGoodness Activity

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October Newsletter

Changing leaves, crunchy apples, tasty pumpkins, crisp, Fall air, and candy....this month is going to be great! Did we mention General Conference, a temple trip, a stake dance, caramel apples, and a Halloween festival?! This just might be the best month of the year! Here is a list of what October has in store for us:

• Wednesday, October 8th   For this weeks activity you will need to bring a pumpkin.  If you can get all the guts cleaned out before the activity that would be great!  If you can’t get it cleaned out, please bring a LARGE metal spoon to scrape the insides. Please remember to have an interview with a member of the bishopric for a temple recommend to attend the temple on Saturday
• October 8th Aimee's Birthday!
• Friday, October 10th: Sleepover at Sister Gosche's at 5:30. Anyone is invited to come for dinner, treats, and fun and not spend the night, if that’s prefered.
• Saturday, October 11th: Temple Trip For anyone not sleeping over, please be at the church to leave for the temple at 8:00 a.m. YW will be back at the church by approximately 2:00 p.m.
• Saturday October 11th: Stake Fall Costume Dance Dance (7:00-10:00) Ages 14+. No masks, face-painting, cross-dressing, or inappropriate clothing.
• Wednesday, October 15th    Your girls will need to bring 4 Granny Smith apples for our annual Carmel Apple night.
• October 17th: Skyler's Birthday!
• Wednesday, October  21st Halloween Scavenger Hunt.  Dgo 2nd YM are in charge.
• Sunday, October 26th: Come, Follow Me lessons by Kensie and Brooke
• Wednesday, October 29th Ward Halloween Festival (YW will help run some of the booths)

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Young Women in Excellence

We had a fabulous time at the Young Women in Excellence Program last night. The 2nd ward did a phenomenal job decorating and planning for the event. I walked inside the gym and had to double check that I was in fact at the YW in Excellence Meeting and that I wasn't crashing a wedding reception or something even fancier. The music and the ambiance were simply spectacular. Although the lanterns, popcorn, lemonade in Mason jars, and value banners were all impressive, the best decorations of all were the quilts that the YW made. They looked great (even the unfinished pieces!).

The theme for the night was "Let the Son In." I loved the way the guest speakers, Jay and Lucy Johnson, explained the importance letting the light of Christ in your life and then spreading that light to others. I loved Sister Johnson's talk so much that I'll give a quick recap here so that you look back and remember it over and over again:

Lord Byron said that "History, with all her volumes, hat but one page," or in other words, "History repeats itself." We often think of that as a negative thing, but there is much to be learned through repetition. The Lord uses repetition with us all the time and there are plenty of examples of cycles or repetitive patterns in the scriptures. In addition to the pride cycle from the Book of Mormon, we can see a pattern of how the Lord sends His people on a journey---Adam and Eve, Moses, Abraham, Lehi and his family, the Jaredites, and even the early pioneers are all examples of how these people were in one place, but the Lord commanded them to go elsewhere, and they endured a journey to get to a different, better place. This is similar to the Plan of Salvation and how we are all currently on a mortal journey to get to a better place back with our Heavenly Father. Another way to apply this concept of a journey is to consider adolescence as a journey towards adulthood. We can grin and bear it to get through the problems and the waves of adolescence, but we can also turn to the Lord for help. Looking specifically at the story of the Jaredites and the brother of Jared, the Lord helped the Brother of Jared to create egg-like barges to help them cross the ocean. There were two obvious problems with these enclosed ships---they didn't have air and they didn't have light. The brother of Jared took the matter to the Lord, and he basically fixed the first problem for him by telling him to put a hole at the top and the bottom and open one of them up to breathe. Heavenly Father fixed our first problem of mortality by sending his son, Jesus Christ, to be our Savior. For the second problem of no light, the Lord told Mahonri Moriancumer (is that shorter to write than the Brother of Jared?) to come up with a solution. Being the craftsman that he was, Mahonri Moriancumer decided to molten 16 small stones out of a rock (side note: we are not sure on the details of how he did this, but when rock is "molted", it is melted at a high temperature, so it's safe to assume that the Brother of Jared had some type of experience working with stones in this way). The brother of Jared was familiar enough with rocks that taking them to the Lord for light was something within his bag of talents. We are all similarly blessed with talents---some are athletes, cooks, actresses, writers, scholars, speakers. We can take these talents to the Lord to have them magnified and allow him to "touch" our talents with light. This way, they will be magnified and this will bring light to our journey and also to others. 

Isn't that a beautiful message? I loved it. Sister Johnson also reminded us that we could remember the importance of Christ as the light in our life by remembering that there are 16 letters in "The Lord is My Light" and there were 16 stones that the Brother of Jared brought before the Lord. Brother Johnson also shared a lovely message building on President Hinckley's quote that, "when you save a girl, you save generations."

Sadly, we didn't get to conclude the evening by sending our lanterns off into the nighttime sky, but we hope to do that another time soon. Our YW are so impressive and I'm glad they got to enjoy a special evening! Good job, everyone!

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Welcome Post

Hi all! Welcome to our new Durango 1st Ward Young Women's blog! We hope you'll find this website helpful in staying informed about upcoming activities and events. We'll use it as a place to post announcements, record and reflect on some of our activities, and as a tool for finding useful information. A few things to point out:

• You can tweet about activities or events and include the hashtag #durangoYW for them to show up in the twitter feed on the blog
• Check out the calendar on the left side column to learn about upcoming events. Click on the events for more details.

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