Wednesday, October 6, 2010

The Fruit of the Spirit

So I have been given a calling in my ward ("congregation") to help the Young Women in our ward to complete a great self improvement program called Personal Progress. We have almost 60 young ladies that I am over, and often it gets overwhelming.

When I was serving a mission for the LDS church in upstate New York we would be serving the people in many different areas. Often times people would fall away from the church and it got overwhelming for the Bishop to find everyone that was a member of the LDS church and a member of their congregation and encourage them to come out. So in one area, we decided to do a Missionary Blitz. We took 2 hours one night, all paired up with another ward member and went and tracked down these members. We wanted to see if our records were correct, and that they still lived in the place that we had on record.

I have been overwhelmed, trying to come up with ways to keep track of all the Young Women and see how they were doing on their Personal Progress. So I had this memory of the type of blitz I did while on my mission come to mind and decided to re-create it as a "Personal Progress Blitz". We teamed up with the leaders that are over these sweet girls and took 1 hour after church to visit each girl at their homes to see how the were doing.

I came up with these little treats, and thought it would be a great idea for many Christians to do for an encouragement to their Youth, so I wanted to share!

First I cut out the cute little die cut of a fry box (Sizzix). Then I went and got my most FAVORITE candies ever ... Frooties. We placed them in a little cello bag and tied a bow. On the front of the box I used a scallop circle and a regular punch to quote the scripture in Galations 5:22 - "The Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, meekness..." The hand out I prepared to slip behind the candy. It explained to the girls when they work on their Personal Progress, the Spirit of Christ will come into their life.

It really turned out great and it reminded the girls that Personal Progress is more than just goal setting and trying to get an award, it is something they can do when they experience trials as a teen and can still enjoy happiness.

Just a great little thing I wanted to share with you. Hopefully it inspired you, even if you don't use the idea "religiously"
:)
M

** Note : I accidentally made WAY too many and have about 50 extra pre-cut boxes. I would be willing to sell them to anyone at the cost. Contact me if you're interested! skierdouglass@gmail.com

5 comments:

Kirsten Krason said...

Wow. Your young women are so lucky. Those are amazing. What a great idea. I love the colors too. So pretty.

rebecca said...

so cute Mandy! when we lived in Dallas I was the personal progress advisor and I loved it. :)

Wendy said...

Great idea...lucky YW! Don't take this the wrong way, but you look way too young to have served a mission, get married and have two darling little boys!

Jennifer DeWolfe said...

Your pictures turned out beautiful and I can't believe have big the boys have gotten! What are you feeding them :)

What a great gift idea! You are so creative and thoguhtful!

zlb said...

Duds! Are 'froots' of the spirit kinda like fruit meat? Just sayin', we had a lot of fruit meat on the mission! Miss you babe! You and the fam are lookin' great!