So Long.... Farewell

Now that the church's youth program has changed to be more personal goal oriented the programs New Beginnings and YW in Excellence is no longer required.   

We still needed to award the last of the last personal progress awards and one of my 1st counselor mentioned this idea  she found on pintrest about having a farewell party to personal progress.  One of the advisers was all over the idea and took her creative design powers and came up with a plan for one last hooray to Personal Progress and other Young Women programs from the past.   

Perhaps the only good thing that came from having our basement flood last fall was my storage room got shifted around.   In putting it back together a few days before the program,  I came across a box labelled YW stuff.  I opened it up and found first of all my medallions that I'd been looking for since I became the YW president, my personal progress book,  a embroidery of the torch from the motto stand for truth and righteousness and some tole painted value crafts.   It was nice to sit and think about my time as a  young woman especially with doing personal progress.   I remember specifically fasting for the first time to fulfill one of the requirements.   During dinner time when the rest of the family was eating I went upstairs and sat on my red shag carpet with my back against my bunk bed and read the required scriptures about fasting and then wrote my feelings about the experience.   I think this was the first time I remember really feeling how the spirit spoke to me.   That's the power of these programs the church lays out for his youth.  

We displayed some of my treasures as well as some other women's memorabilia.  It was neat to see and hear about how the church's program for his daughters has changed throughout the years and to know that continual revelation is real.  

At the end of the night the advisor in charge whose husband who retired from being a lifer in the military spoke about how the military retires flags and now we are retiring the YW value flags.  To show our respect she had all the current YW stand in front of the flags and then had any in attendance  stand to honor the retired values.    It was a neat night and a neat way to end the era of personal progress