YWIE 2009

I build mountains and move them too:) Well that is paper mountains. This is what we did as decorations for Young Women in Excellence (YWIE).


A while back we are were brainstorming as a YW presidency and somehow we got onto the idea of doing silhouettes. Not just any ordinary silhouette but a mountain with girls each carrying a light to the top. The concept was that the girl would carry a light as a symbol of her being an example for all to see (you can't see it very well in the picture but the silhouette girls are carrying tea lights). I'm into mountains. What can I say?! I liked the idea of the girls climbing a mountain because it is an incredibly hard journey (kind of like life). When at the top you can see for miles. Shine your light for all to see...right?!
The concept goes perfectly with the "Be Thou an Example" theme. We felt it needed a little more to relate the theme so we added this verse from 3rd Nephi 18:24 "... hold up your light that it may shine unto the world...". At the time we felt like it was a good idea and it all came together so nicely. It just fit. We had no idea how well it was going to go with the entire night.

A little background of the prep for the night is needed. This year our YW stake presidency decided to have a stake YWIE. It sounded like a wonderful idea to me. They gave each ward an assignment (some wards assigned to work together). Most wards were also assigned a value. We each were to do a creative 5 minute value presentation with our YW. Our ward was assigned to decorations and divine nature.


Typically in the past we decided some sort of theme and revolved the night around it. Such as last year our YWIE theme was "I believe...". We had a light, star theme that the decoration revolved around. The stake didn't give us certain direction other than it was "Be Thou an Example". We went big...mountain big :)


As we sat back and enjoyed the night. We laughed that this mountain was our YWIE project. It took over 10 hours to make, set up and clean up. You should have seen me on the super tall latter! It was worth every minute...

I believe we were inspired building that mountain. It took a lot of time and effort but it was worth every moment. The YW loved it. It was fun to see people not only taking pictures of it but standing in front of it posing for pictures. That wasn't even the most rewarding part. The most rewarding part was when you put a bunch of wards together who hadn't communicated about what they were doing and somehow, someway it all came together. For example the opening song sang by a YW group was "A Light on a Hill". They sang it in front of our mountain. Another group during their 5 minute presentation actually read 3rd Nephi 18:24. Her talk was about the scripture. It just happened to be displayed behind her on the mountain. Feeling, listening and taking action to inspiration feels good! I'm grateful for a Heavenly Father who knows me, loves me and helps me. I need Him often! I'm grateful He has chosen me to help lead His youth. I truly feel blessed.