Sunday Best

In the summertime I am struck by difference between the way the young men in my ward (congregation) and the young women in my ward dress. The young men are administering the sacrament so they have on dress pants, a white shirt, and a tie. On any given Sunday there will be a young woman there in a denim skirt, a t-shirt and flip flops. I don't like to talk about the casual dress of some of the young women in our meetings on Sunday, because I don't want to embarrass anyone. Even when I do say something it doesn't seem to have an impact the next week in how the young women are dressed. Just to be clear: I am not talking about young women who have no other clothing option or who's 'Sunday best' really is a graphic T.

This Tuesday we went to a lake for our mutual activity, so I took the opportunity to talk to the young women about their footwear at church. I asked them what they would do if they were going on a date and had dressed casually, but the boy came to pick them up and he was all dressed up. They agreed that they would ask him to wait while they changed into something more dressy. I then pointed out how the young men are totally out dressing the young women at our Sunday meetings. I think they got the connection. Then I told them that the flip flops they were wearing to go the lake were great for going to the lake, but not for going to church.

I handed out flip flop keychains with a quote from the November 2005 general conference:

"We used to speak of 'best dress' or 'Sunday dress,' and maybe we should do so again. In any case, from ancient times to modern we have always been invited to present our best selves inside and out when entering the house of the Lord—and a dedicated LDS chapel is a “house of the Lord.” Our clothing or footwear need never be expensive, indeed should not be expensive, but neither should it appear that we are on our way to the beach."

Jeffrey R. Holland

I'm waiting to see if I made an impact at all when I go to church this afternoon!

It's all been done before

On Saturday night Ken asked me what I was working on and I said, "Guess." He knew what that meant - I was working on something for the young women. He then suggested I was adopting the philosophy (which he knows I disagree with) that Everything worth doing is worth over doing. That wasn't it at all, I just had some inspiration and made the time to follow through with the ideas. In this post there are 5 ideas I've seen elsewhere all folded into 2 projects.

I was really inspired by the *full plate* idea from Kelly's blog and I decided to apply it to my YW and use the concept to encourage them to reserve some time for working on their personal progress. I cut and punched a green paper plate, and then nested it in a blue one to make it pretty - a Martha Stewart idea. The little scroll of paper says:

Is your plate too full to fit in some personal progress? Take a close look at what's eating your time!

The double paper plate creates an opportunity for a secret message, which I'm curious if any of the young women will find. Will they separate the plates after they eat the cookies? I know I would.

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On Tuesday this week we invited mothers to join their daughters at YW's to watch this DVD about dress and appearance. It was an interesting documentary involving some history of changing women's styles and interviews with young women and adults of various cultures and backgrounds on the topic of modesty.

One of the special features on the DVD was titled 'Pockets of Resistance', which made me think back to Kristi's St. Patrick's Day card, and I knew I had to do a hand out for each young woman on the subject of modesty.




I printed out some points from For the Strength of Youth that I thought were important for the young women to keep in mind this summer as they make decisions in what they wear.

And I made pockets from construction paper because construction paper is so cloth like. I divided each sheet into thirds, folded each piece, sliced off the corners, and sewed them up to look like pockets. If you have never sewed construction paper on a sewing machine, you really have to try it just to hear the sound it makes.

I went with multi colors because Elizabeth's multicolor blogger's cookbooks were so pretty!

Mirror Image

I had fun trying to take my picture in the mirror once I figured out I needed to turn off the flash! The mirror I worked with hangs in my front entrance, and the room behind me is the living room.

So here was the task:

take a picture of yourself in the mirror. any mirror will do. now, take a really good look at yourself. try to see your image as others around you see it. bring to mind something kind or unusual that a friend has noticed about your recently. can you see what they see? will you tell us about it??

O.K. something someone has noticed about me recently. First, just let me say something about working with young women from church. They really know how to pay a compliment - especially the 16 and 17 year olds. So this has been really great for my self image - for instance:

"I like your skirt, Sister Leader (only one YW calls me that)."

"I like how you did your hair today." (on the same day a member of the Bishopric made some reference to my Amish hair - it was in a bun)

"That is such a cool ring."

And the one that I thought of when I looked at my mirror image:

"Your eyes are so green." My driver's licence says they're blue, but one day when I was sitting in a personal progress interview with one of my laurels, she thought they looked green. I was wearing green that day, just like I am in my self portrait. I see it, now. They do look a little more green when I'm wearing that color.

Lowly tar paper

Tar paper is now a classic decorating staple in my ward.

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For this YW torch we projected and enlarged the image onto tar paper, traced and cut to make these giant torch cut outs that we tack up with black tacks to the burlap walls on either side of the stage for every major YW event.

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At Christmas time the activities committee rolled out tar paper all around the perimeter of the gym and used chalk to outline an ancient Bethlehem style city scape. The possibilities are endless, and someone always seems to have a partial roll left over from re-roofing their garage or home.

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A few words before I go . . .

Hopefully we're leaving tomorrow for a family ski holiday. I say hopefully, because it looks like our youngest child is sick, which means we'll have to delay the trip by a day or two, or just the big kids and dad will go skiing, while I stay home with the sickie. We're waiting to see how she feels in the morning.

We had New Beginnings this week. I definitely feel that the middle of February is late in the year for New Beginnings. We probably should have done it in January, but I felt like we'd just barely put on YW in Excellence, and I wasn't ready for another YW event yet in January. Anyhow, I have a laurel who was finished all her personal progress except for her Good Works project. She told me the project was a surprise for me, and that she would give it to me at New Beginnings, which was so sweet. Right up there with a CTR 5 child giving her primary teacher a picture she made during sacrament meeting. This YW had obviously consulted with the YW secretary, because the presentation was printed up right into the program. She made me a book of quotes on service. It was so perfect, and so her. This girl has a quote for every subject we discuss in class. Her bedroom is practically wallpapered with quotes. She also wrote her testimony in the back of the book. And I thought I'd miss primary.




There's been an unexpected upside to the dishwasher breaking down and my choice to turn to disposable dishes: the kids' jokes have improved tremendously. You know how little kids try to tell jokes, but they just aren't funny. Well, no more. When I bought dixie cups I was really just trying to buy something that all the kids would use, which meant no disney princess, winnie the pooh, or anything else that might offend a 10 year old boy. The joke cups were the only other option.

So why is it dangerous to do math in the jungle? Because when you add 4 and 4 you get ate.

I have a couple of Value Village treasures trapped in the trunk of my minivan. The van is 9 years old, and certain functions are starting to go. The remote for the locks doesn't work every time on every door. In fact, the interior buttons for the locks don't always work. Another problem with the van is that quite often it won't register that the trunk door is closed. When this happens the wiper on the back window won't work, which means with the sloppy roads we've had around here, I have to stop frequently at a gas station just to clean my back window. I just came out of a long stretch of the rear door tricking the van into believing it was ajar. I was so pleased when after a trip to Value Village the rear door registered closed, and the wiper started working again. That was 11 days ago. I haven't opened the trunk since I left the store that day - I'm too afraid the next time I open and close that door I'll be back to a rear wiper that doesn't work. Good thing we're taking Ken's truck on our trip, not my minivan.