April and May Personal Progress Updates

Happy April!

This month, your calendar experience focused on the sacrament. As part of your "Come Follow Me" curriculum in April you learned about the apostasy and restoration. Part of the restoration was bringing back the sacrament as Jesus had taught it to his disciples. 

It is Faith experience #4. Did you read the scriptures pertaining to that experience? Have you set a pattern of pondering the sacrament prayers and journaled about your baptismal covenants? If not- that's okay! You can still complete this experience. The tidbits each day on the calendar can be a source to help you- but you can complete these experiences whenever it is best for you. I know you girls are sure busy!!

 And for our mutual activity in April you had the opportunity to work on 1 or 2 experiences in personal progress. Divine Nature #3: strengthening a family relationship AND Individual Worth #3: helping to build others and make them feel of worth. These experiences will largely be done by yourself, so I am sorry- we did not get to sign off these experiences that night. But I gave you some handouts to help you be successful. I hope that you will read over them several times and that you will ask yourself the questions I included and that they will help you to know WHO you can serve and love and WHAT you can do to serve and love.

 In fact, I have felt that those experiences can be so beneficial for you, that on May's calendar I will include tidbits to remind you of the goal to strengthen relationships and lift others. So no new calendar experience for May- just continuing from the mutual activity in April. I want you to be successful. So if you haven't yet started, you still can!

Since the calendar experience for May won't be centered on the "Come Follow Me" curriculum- our mutual activity will be! The theme for the month of May is "Prophets and Revelation". For May we will be working on Choice and Accountability #5. (And according to my notes, no one has yet completed that one!) That experience centers on learning more about the Holy Ghost- our revelator. We will also be making a craft to help us remember the prophets and their counsel. It will likely be similar to this...

or this...

 But instead of holding pictures we will be using them to hold our favorite quotes from conference so that we can always remember the prophets and their counsel! (Of course if you choose to use it to hold a picture that is fine too.) Perhaps a quote such as this...

Does this sound familiar to anyone? (Maybe from the movie we watched at our personal progress mutual?)

Happy personal progressing! Love you girls! 

Sister Chambers

Personal Progress Recognition

 Dear Young Women,

Have you wondered how you will be recognized for completing three personal progress experiences? I have decided to create a basket full of goodies for you to choose from. Here are what the gifts are....

For each three personal progress experiences you complete, you will get to pick a gift from the basket! As the number of gifts dwindle I will replace them with new things.

Congratulations to Jenna, Emma, and Marlee who have been completing personal progress experiences and get to choose from our new basket of goodies tomorrow!

Happy personal progressing! Love, Sister Chambers

March Personal Progress Update

Hello Young Women!

I am looking forward to our St. Patrick's Day personal progress activity this Tuesday. Thanks to Marlee for helping to plan the activities. Come ready to "hunt for treasure"! (Perhaps you will find a pot of gold...)

 This Tuesday's activity will help you to accomplish another experience in the value of Faith. If you completed February's calendar experience (Faith #6), March's calendar experience (Faith #5), and this mutual activity (Faith #2)- that will be 3 FAITH EXPERIENCES COMPLETED IN 2 MONTHS!

Also, remember that for every 3 experiences completed I want to recognize you with a small gift!

Happy personal progressing! Love, Sister Chambers

Pictures!

 New Beginnings, January 2015.

 Game Night and "Fear Factor" mutual activities, February 2015.

Personal Progress "Stuff"

My dear Young Women,

I have already enjoyed so much my calling as your personal progress advisor! I love reading through my personal progress book and prayerfully considering activities that we can do together to help you accomplish personal progress.

New Beginnings was a lot of fun- I want you to know that I REALLY do know that personal progress will bring color into your world!

 I wanted to recap the personal progress activities that we have already done, to make sure you are on track and completing the ones you would like to.

Remember: each month on the calendar there will be days devoted to personal progress "tidbits" and if you complete each task, you will have an experience completed by the end of the month. Look on the back of the newsletter to find out which experience you will complete! They will correlate with the monthly "Come Follow Me" curriculum.

 January calendar experience: Individual Worth #1

January PP mutual activity: New Beginnings

February calendar experience: Faith #6

I had your young women leaders pass out a copied picture that depicts that plan of salvation (you will need it for this experience). You can also get it here.

February PP mutual activity: Integrity #3

I will try to plan activities and experiences that will help everyone complete personal progress. However, you are all in different phases of the program. So if one month the mutual activity doesn't help you complete an experience, the next one will!

Remember: for every 3 experiences you complete you will get a reward. I want to recognize your accomplishment. Don't be shy- let me know!

Love, Sister Chambers

Frozen Party Pictures

 Snow/Ice Monster (Missy), Olaf (Marlee), Elsa (Noel), Anna (Sara), Sven (Jenna)

A Mighty Change of Heart

Dear Young Women,

In two weeks we will be having our "Frozen" party. 

As a presidency we are so excited for this event. We LOVE the movie "Frozen" as well as its theme- a mighty change of heart.

 To introduce our party, here are some thoughts from Elder Marvin J. Ashton from a talk entitled, "The Measure of our Hearts"...

I would like to share some thoughts about measurements. A measurement is a standard by which we determine the capacity or dimension of a person or object. A measurement gives us a basis for comparison.

If I say, “She is a three-point student,” you have a pretty good idea of this person’s scholastic ability. A measurement may also be an estimate of what is expected.

Human measurement, of course, is subject to human fallibility. My generation, for example, was taught that a person’s I.Q. was supposedly a fixed measurement of a person’s capacity to learn. Such a notion is now generally discredited by the teaching profession. Interestingly, the Prophet Joseph Smith taught in the nineteenth century: “We consider that God has created man with a mind capable of instruction, and a faculty which may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and diligence given to the light communicated from heaven to the intellect.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1938, p. 51.) He was obviously ahead of his time!

We also tend to evaluate others on the basis of physical, outward appearance: their “good looks,” their social status, their family pedigrees, their degrees, or their economic situations.

The Lord, however, has a different standard by which he measures a person. When it came time to choose a king to replace King Saul, the Lord gave this criteria to his prophet Samuel: “Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; … for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” (1 Sam. 16:7.)

When the Lord measures an individual, He does not take a tape measure around the person’s head to determine his mental capacity, nor his chest to determine his manliness, but He measures the heart as an indicator of the person’s capacity and potential to bless others.

 Why the heart? Because the heart is a synonym for one’s entire makeup. We often use phrases about the heart to describe the total person. Thus, we describe people as being “big-hearted” or “goodhearted” or having a “heart of gold.” Or we speak of people with faint hearts, wise hearts, pure hearts, willing hearts, deceitful hearts, conniving hearts, courageous hearts, cold hearts, hearts of stone, or selfish hearts.

The measure of our hearts is the measure of our total performance. As used by the Lord, the “heart” of a person describes his effort to better self, or others, or the conditions he confronts.

A question I suggest to you is this: How do you measure up?

 

As your leaders we hope that you will come to our "Frozen" party! It will be a night of "Frozen" fun as we watch the movie, eat snacks, and learn about a mighty change of heart.