Piedmont YW Annual Report for 2018

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Piedmont YW Annual Report for 2018

2018 was a good year for the Piedmont Ward Young Women! Though we were small in number, we were mighty in spirit! The theme for the year was Peace in Christ.  It was a year of many changes for our YW. Some of our YW and YW leaders faced challenges and we were thankful to be able to find peace in Christ. At the start of the year we typically had between 1 and 5 young women attending on Sundays and for weekly activities. The Piedmont YW presidency was Sis. Tammy Johnson (president), Sis. Brooke Soderholm (1st counselor), Sis. Christen Dudley (2nd counselor) with Sis. Janet Kunka (secretary). Sis. Becky Glass was our YW advisor and faithfully taught the majority of the Sunday lessons. As the year progressed, we lost our secretary to another calling. Christen was also released. Tammy Johnson and Booke Soderholm went many months without a 2nd counselor until Sis. Kathryn Hughes moved into our ward and was called into the presidency. It was announced in the spring that the YW would no longer use the camp manual or participate in camp certification. A large group of girls went to camp in the summer! When school started, we started having our weekly activities on Tuesday nights with the Culpeper Ward. That was really cool for our youth to be able to break into age groups for class activities and to get to know other LDS youth in the area better. Later in the fall, the YW presidency was released. Sis. Brooke Soderholm was called as the YW president. Sis. Abby Williams was called as the first counselor, Kathryn Hughes was called as the 2nd counselor, and Sis. Katherine McKell was called as secretary. We also had new advisors called in December. Sis. Jessica Kamvar was called as the Beehive advisor, Sis. Nicole Shiffler was called as MiaMaid advisor, and Sis. Beverly Quick was called as the Laurel advisor. The YW are very blessed to be able to work with these amazing women and these adult leaders are blessed to be surrounded by our awesome young women! At the end of the year we usually had between 4 and 10 young women attending. Several changes that affected the YW were announced during the fall of the year. We found out at general conference that we would be moving to a 2 hour church day and that we would only have YW 2 Sundays a month in 2019. We learned that 2019 would be the last year for the personal progress program. We learned that 11 year olds turning 12 in 2019 would join us all at once at the start of the year. We also found out that we will no longer be meeting with Culpeper Ward for weekly activities. It was a year of many changes and transitions, but we accepted them and pressed forward with faith.

The YW attended and planned and participated in many lessons and activities that helped them to learn and live the gospel of Jesus Christ. We had New Beginnings at the start of the year and continued to work on personal progress and tried to plan activities that would help us with our goals throughout the year.

(New Beginnings)

Our YW participated in missionary work by sharing their standards with others, visiting less active members, visiting YW with the missionaries, and inviting friends to participate. A few friends attended church and others came to our activities. Several friends liked the stake dances and now want to come every month.

(Some of our sister missionaries came frequently to our Wednesday night activities.)

We planned a few activities to help care for the poor and needy. We  worked on our personal progress goals for good works and participated in service projects.

(One example was refinishing a dresser and donating it to a new refugee family’s home.)

We enjoyed two temple trips where the youth participated in baptisms and confirmations. Several youth brought names from their families.

We did not take pictures of all of our many activities, but we did take a few.

We had an Olympic Games night in January.

We enjoyed learning a new art technique called pour painting

We felt the spirit as we sang, “Peace in Christ” in YW on Sundays.

We enjoyed a sports night that the Young Men planned- human foosball!

It was great for our YW to get to know each other better at camp! Camp also provided many opportunities to feel the spirit and develop testimonies.

One night we made lollipops! The girls were proud.

We made a good group with the Culpeper YW!

We enjoyed an Alice in Wonderland themed YW in Excellence with the Culpeper Ward in November.

Our Young Women made these snowflakes to be used as decorations for both the Piedmont and Culpeper Wards’ Christmas parties.

We also enjoyed tubing on the river one Saturday, carving pumpkins, having holiday parties, dropping off treats for ward members, hosting a picnic and auction to raise money for Girls Camp, tie dying shirts for girls camp, personal progress nights, learning to conduct music, making and decorating cookies, March Madness for personal progress, playing “Prophet or Princess,” attending BYC, participating in a Stake youth committee, singing in sacrament meeting on our own and with the RS, and many many more activities!

Again, it was a good year for our YW!