climbing up the ladder

Upon turning eighteen, I was anxious to wrap up my Personal Progress that I've been working on since I entered the wonderful Young Women program. There are eight values, for which each six experiences and one big 10 hour project needs to be completed. Quite a bit of time, 80 hours to complete the projects alone, in addition to the required experiences. For the projects, I was able to use things I was already doing, from participating in my school's DECA chapter, helping out at the polls last year, completing my college applications, and being co-president of my school's Environmental club. For the experiences, I chose to do things like serving a member of my family for a month, planning my family's menus, shopping and helping to prepare meals for two weeks, and much more. It was a huge accomplishment finishing the program that I've been working on since I turned twelve. I wear my new medallion with pride and appreciate all the work it symbolizes.

With graduating the Laurel class (oldest group of Young Women), I was kindly welcomed into Relief Society. At first, it seemed a bit overwhelming as all the women are a bit older, but everyone is so friendly and there are plenty of fun activities. I was happy to sit next to a college gal closer to my age for my first RL lesson, since my mom's helping out in Nursery. We went to a delicious pre-Thanksgiving dinner where they taught us how to prepare tasty appetizers, the best part was sampling them right after they were demonstrated. It was a great night with my mom, its always great learning new things together. My favorite part of RS is the Visiting Teaching program. Each month, a friend and I take turns giving the lesson to a wonderful woman who is such a delight to chat with. I've loved getting to know her really well & am so thrilled for the little peanut to arrive!! Also once a month, I am visit taught by a good friend of mine, she's such an excellent example to me & I love how much we just talk and talk.

Within a few weeks of entering RS, I got asked to be a Primary teacher for the CTR 4/5 class. There's eight wonderful kiddos in my class and I love teaching them every week. They say the cutest things & are also really smart. Last week, with talking about Thanksgiving and family living further away-they started talking about Skype, most of the kids aren't even six years old! I love getting to know them more and more every week and the little snippets of their lives they talk about. I'm trying to think of a nice Christmas gift I can put together for their parents, but a little more unique than a homemade popsicle stick frame picture ornament...pictures to come:) Can't believe how soon Navidad is!!