YM/YW MISSION: -
- We called each YM and YW on a mission. We had 3 missions- I used
missions from where members of our ward had served. We had a Navajo,
Brazil, and Tiwan mission. We made name tags for each youth.
They had to say goodbye to their parents at the chapel door. The
opening prayer was "Called to Serve" . We then had the Stake Mission President
and his wife welcome all of the youth on their missions(posing as a mission
president and wife) they gave a small talk on what will happen on the mission
and the importance. We then separate into missions where they spent
the first 15-20 minutes in the "MTC" learning how to introduce themselves
and the church in the language assigned to them. Then we had 3 5-10
minute workshops they attended. 1- Cooking ideas for the missionary
in case a dinner appt falls through. 2- ironing and basic sewing- hemming
and buttons. 3- Q & A: We had 3 recent returned missionaries
( within a year). The kids wrote down 2 questions and put them in
a bowl. The RM's pulled out a question and answered them. After
that they went to the RS room to watch the movie "Called to serve" or another
missionary movie by the church. The Bishop ended the night with his
testimony of missionary work and what the kids could do here and now.
We ended the evening with "We'll Bring the World His Truth." It was a great
evening. We had no refreshments- It would have spoiled the
spirit. Kelli STAKE MUSIC FIRESIDE: - On every fifth Sunday our stake holds
a fireside for all youth. Our stake youth council gave every ward 2 months
to prepare a musical number to be performed that night at the stake
fireside. We began with a youth speaker talking about
the power of music in our lives, good and bad and followed the speaker
with 9 musical numbers that could be presented in the chapel.
Big success...standing room only!
BOOK OF MORMON BATTLE: - We as the Young Women and Young Men
are having a "Book of Mormon Battle." We are counting pages for the
next 3 months to see which group reads the most. Then at the end,
for the joint activity, the loser will make and serve dinner to the loser.
To help start off this challenge, we had a fireside to help them become
familiar with the Book of Mormon stories. We had it at one of the
leaders home and told the youth to bring their scriptures. The laurels
presidency had previously picked 7 stories from the Book of Mormon and
each written a discription of the story. We then divided into groups
(Beehives, Deacon, Leaders, etc...) and each had to perform a skit on one
of the stories the Laurels had assigned us. The leaders did their
own skit, so the youth were on their own. They did a great job and
everyone had fun learning the Book of Mormon stories!
SUNDAY EVENING DISCUSSIONS: - We hold monthly Sunday evening
decisions. We take turns having them at the YW President's
house, the YM President's house and the Bishop's house. The
bishop leads out a topic and it falls into place from there. I have
asked the Bishop to use the "For the Strength of the Youth" booklet as
a base.
YOUTH INVOLVED DISCUSSIONS: - Our speaker was from our
ward. He pulled together a panel of 2 adults and 6 kids. He started
the discussion by letting all the youth write down questions on family
relationships. It was great. The kids in the audience also enjoyed putting
in their $.02 worth.
YOUTH QUESTIONS: - For our next fireside we have asked the youth
to write down gospel related questions that they would like answered or
are stuggling to understand. We have put a fish bowl in the young
women's room for the questions to go in. It almost full already.
We will probably have to screen the questions however the youth are pretty
excited abouth this. The bishop will conduct the fireside and be
the ultimate authority on the answers but we want the youth to answer
each other's questions if possible. They are pretty excited about
it already. We probably have a speaker fireside about once or twice
a year.
MORALITY/DATING/MODESTY: - We did a great one last month, where
we spent the month having the youth write down quesions about dating, morality
and modesty, submitted them all to our bishop. He organized them,
and that night read the question and gave his answer. We called it
"Ask the Bishop". We also told the kids that since our bishop was
the leader of the ward, whatever he said goes. We had a great turnout,
the kids asked great questions although the thing we found was that they
really wanted specific rulings about what constitutes a date, etc and it
was informative!
PICTIONARY: - One of the youth firesides I really
enjoyed was playing "Pictionary" with gospel themes.
We did it at one of my
counselor's homes, and the setting was perfect and everyone had
a great time.