Embark is the Service of God

I work with the young women at church, ages 12-18.  I really love it! 

 It's a Ton of work! But I feel grateful I can work, learn and grow with them.

This year we decided to have this be a year of Service.  Each month we dedicated one of our activities to serving others.  There was so much growth and joy found in that service.

Here's the video I made, documenting what we did.

O Ye that Embark in the Service of God. from @lliE on Vimeo.

Easy to do Scriptionary-- YW Mutual Idea

 

This week for Mutual our activity is Scriptionary.  I kind of toyed around with the idea of making a gameboard or making this a bit more complicated. Then, of course, I came to my senses and made a fun, quick game of it.

Using these Scriptionary cards from Mormon Share.  

The whole thing probably took me ten minutes to put together.  

Here's what you need to make your own easy Scriptionary Game:

1. Scriptionary cards (strips)

2. 7 Paper bags

3. 1 die

4. Chalk/chalkboard

STEP ONE: On 6 bags write out the Titles: "Person or People" "Place" "Event" "Ordinance" "Song Title or Saying" and "Thing (s)". Then draw out six different sides of the die on each bag.  Or, you could just write the numbers 1-6.

STEP TWO: Print off the scriptionary strips, cut them out and place them in their coordinating bag. 

I did change just a few of the strips to suit my needs, I changed the temple one, to our local temple.  I changed the Prophet, to our current Prophet. And I did not use the one, stand alone,"action" strip.

The seventh bag is for the discarded strips, once you're done, so they don't get re-mixed back in.

GAME PLAY:

Divide your girls into two teams.

One at a time, each girl rolls the die and picks a strip from the bag.

She has 90 seconds to draw what's written on the board.

If her team does not guess in time, the other team gets one chance to guess.

Team with the highest score at the end, WINS!

Young Women Activity- Box of Lies

As I've mentioned before I work with young women in my church, ages 12-18.  Each Wednesday we meet together and typically we're trying to do a lot of good for ourselves, others, and our God.   Each month we're specially preforming a service to others.  Often times we're learning a new skill (I've taught them lots of sewing- ha), or we're learning about safety or, generally, trying the better the world or ourselves.

That's literally a lot of growth and good we're putting out there.  And I love it -- however, I felt like we just needed to spend one night where we're having a lot of fun, getting to know each other-- and well, learning to lie a little...

If you're a big fan, like me, of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, then you may have seen his game they made up, Box of Lies.  Literally, the first time I saw it, I thought, "We should totally do this as an activity.  It would be So fun!"  Last week we finally did it!

Here's how we played the game.

FIRST, I made the board.

I was seriously struggling with how to make the board.  Mostly, because my go-to for all things is sewing.  And I was envisioning this fabric draped over PVC pipes, with a hole cut out.  It wasn't going well in my mind.  When I talked it over with some friends, my friend immediately said, "How about a science tri-fold board?"  I was like, Ah-HAH ingenious!  

So, I headed over to WAl-mart, picked up a black board.  I sat down at the table to try to determine how high the hole should be, then traced a big rectangle on the board.  Then, I cut that out with an exact-o knife.

Next I markered in each side with a silver or gold sharpie.  This made the holes really pop out and made my team names easy -- Gold team and Silver team.

For about three months I've been collecting boxes.  A lot of these came from the ReStore.  Plus a few from friends.

For what was inside I tried to get as creative as possible!  Mostly, I just went to the toy room and went for the most random collections I could think of.  Below are a few examples: A centipede, wearing Belle's princess dress, sitting inside Cinderella's glass slipper.  A rubbery Brontosaurus, wearing a jockey hat.  Olaf and R2D2 talking inside a pink baby crib.  A stem engine with a conductor and a brush.

 Before we started I read to the girls, the Official Rules:

Up front are a bunch of boxes containing objects no one has seen before.  

Taking turns each side will select a box, open it on your side of the table, out of view of the other person.

Once the object is out of the box, you look at your opponent and tell them what's in the box. 

You might be lying, you might be telling the truth.

Your opponent has to guess if it's a lie or a truth.

If you guess correctly you get a point.

Guess wrong, your opponent gets a point. 

Whichever team has the most points at the end of the the time, gets a Million Sugary Snacks!!!

The Looser gets nothing!

Let us begin!

I divided the girls up into groups, Silver and Gold.  Once each girl selected her box and sat down, I had them answer a simple math question.  Whoever answered it correctly First, got to go first.

This game was so fun and so random. 

 Just like I hoped it brought lots of laughing and we all had fun.

Honor Bee Art

As I've mentioned before I work with the young women at Church.

It is a wonderful calling and I'm honored to see such wonderful examples of what youth now days are capable of.

Recently one of the young women in my ward completed her Honor Bee. 

 Besides being able to hand her, her honor bee medallion, I wanted to give her another little something special.  I thought about it for a while before deciding on a nice little piece of art, for her to remember the hard work that went into completing both her personal progress and her honor bee.

I sometimes forget how fun and quick painting with watercolor can be. 

 A couple years ago my husband got me this fancy watercolor set, where you squeeze the paint out of the tubes and add water to use it.  It's always really fun to paint with.

I loosely based my beehive off of this darling art from Rifle Paper Co.

I really loved this quote, "The bee is more honored than other animals, not because she labors, but because she labors for others." St. John Chrysostom.

I added it to the small frame.  It really exemplifies what it takes to earn the honor bee.  You must read the Book of Mormon, then perform 40 hours of service for others.

It brought me much joy to give this to that special young woman who is such a great example to others.

21 Pillowcases

This year the young women I work with at Church are focusing a lot on providing monthly service to others.  It's a great opportunity for growth and selfless thinking.

As we were brainstorming ideas I put my vote in for making pillow cases for the organization ConKerr Cancer.  I first heard of this organization from Made.

Of course, you know, I am a heavy sewing enthusiast so pairing my love of sewing, teaching that skill to the youth, and being able to give a cheery gift to others was the perfect service activity.

The girls jumped into the activity head first!  They were so awesome.  At varying levels of sewing skills they were all able to make at least one, sometimes three or four pillow cases.

We followed this tutorial by Made.

They really did an awesome job and learned a lot.

The pillow cases turned out so bright and cheery.  We couldn't wait to deliver them.

A couple days later I washed all the pillowcases, ironed them, and packaged them up to be delivered to our local hospital.

21 pillowcases, ready to go!

Standards Night Jeopardy!

I work with young women in my church and we have activities every Wednesday night.  A couple weeks ago we planned out a Standards nights where we would play a game, discussing the For the Strength of Youth handbook and those standards. 

I searched around the web and found this really useful jeopardy game, made up from the For the Strength of the Youth handbook from YW Ideas from 2 Sisters.  She talks about the printable handout at the bottom, but I couldn't find the jeopardy question handout.  

So, using her questions listed in her post, I made THIS PRINTABLE

It worked out for the game perfectly.  I put it all together in about 1 hour.

Here's how:

STEP ONE:  Grab a poster board, some scrapbook paper, and print off the jeopardy questions (link above).

STEP TWO:  Cut out the printable question squares and the scrapbook squares (about 4" x 3").  Glue questions onto the back of scrapbook paper.

STEP THREE:  Placing it all on the board.  Glue the topic on the right side of the scrapbook paper and glue that in place on the board.  Write the amount number on the right side of each question's scrapbook paper.  Tape in place.  I did all my 100s-500s on the front of the board and 200s-1,000s on the back.

PLAY THE GAME!-- here's how--

-Divide the girls into two teams.

-Each team gets 5 minutes to study the For the Strength of the Youth handbook.  Encourage them to read different sections.

-Write team names on the board and write "Book" twice under each team's section.  They get two helps, in which they can consult the book to find the correct answer.  Once they use their help, cross out "book" on the board.

-Round one is the 100s side, round two is the 200s side.  Once round two begins, give the girls their two helps again.

-If a team does not know the answer (after one minute) the other team gets the chance to steal, by knowing the answer or using one of their book helps.

-Team with the highest points Wins!

There were large candies purchased for the winning team and weird gross things (spam, pork rinds, etc..) for each team to choose from.

This was a really fun night and the girl's had a blast!  It was also an excellent way to study the For the Strength of the Youth handbook.  What a beautiful resource for them to understand.

A Look at our Girl's Camp Crafts

So we did it.  We can all check Go To Girl's Camp off our Summer to-do list!

As you may remember I was in charge of the crafts this year.

We made Luminaries and headbands.  

They really turned out fantastic!!

I wanted to share a bit of the photos from the Big day(s)!  Technically I ended up going up there twice, but only busted the camera out the second day.  The first day I was running around like a crazy woman trying to help everyone.

First, here's a look at the youth finishing off their Luminaries.  

Day one, everyone pretty much got their stencils drawn, cut out, and sprayed the gloss on their jars.  Quite a few of the girls learned that if you put too heavy a coat it looks goopy.  Two light coats are better than one thick one!

Day two, everyone peeled off the stencils and added the wire.  Which, I might add is no small task.  Team work was often the key here.

But the girls knew a good place for help. 

 (below) He alone probably made half the girl's handles.

Here I am, below struggling along.  I made about four handles and worked up quite the sweat each time.

I had to laugh as one of the girl's sat down and just went to town and made her handle in like 30 seconds flat.  I marveled and told her, "Wow, you must have experience working with wire."

She shrugged and said, "Not really.  But I do build fences and work a lot with barbwire."

Ha, ha, no wonder she was a natural!

Here are some of the Luminaries all done.  Aren't they great!

I wasn't there for testimony, but I heard all the girls brought theirs and it was fantastic looking!

The headbands were really self directed.  I had print outs of all the directions and the girls just came and helped their selves and made some really cute headbands!

Here they are chatting and working.  Isn't that the best way to do crafts?

I have only a couple finished projects.  Here's a headband made into a bracelet.

And two cute headbands.

 Girl's camp was So fun! 

 It's such a special place and I'm so glad I was able to be a part of it this year!

How to make YW Luminaries

 Remember how I'm in charge of the crafts this year for Girl's Camp?  

Well, after making those cute No-Sew headbands, the girls are also going to make their own YW Luminaries to bring to the testimony meeting at the end of the week.

 

There's a few idea for how to make these on the web but many are lacking in details for exactly what to do or buy.  

Plus I don't have a cricut or silhouette machine at my disposal...so I had to think a bit outside the box. 

Here's a list of the Materials We Used:

1.      Pint sized mason jar (donated from the stake)

2.      Clear contact paper (purchased)

3.      Krylon frosted glass finish (I bought 8 cans from Amazon here)

4.      LED tea light (100 pack from Amazon here)

5.      Printed off silhouette paper (I printed off 5 sheets total).

6.      30” of wire (for each girl, I bought two pack of this wire.  This wire is really thick-- thicker than I meant to buy, but it turned out great, as long as you can muscle it around.)

7.      Newspaper

For the silhouette paper I made a simple sheet which you can use located HERE. 
We have a few girls that are coming that are not LDS, so I wanted them to have options for their luminaries. 

For the FULL Tutorials go HERE.  

This explains each step.  

I printed off three copies of the tutorial and put each page in a sleeve protectors and tied them together with baker's twine. 

I'll only be there on the first day, so the girls need to know how to do each step without me.

I can't wait to see how their luminaries turn out!