The YWIEs 2018

Our Young Women in Excellence idea this year was inspired by the Dundee awards on the TV show The Office, which Melissa and I both love. We were joking around at some point, which is normal, and something was said about handing out the YWIEs, pronounced U-ees because I said it quickly and wasn't really thinking about how it should sound. Well, the idea, and the pronunciation, stuck! We set up the gym like an awards show, complete with red carpet, balloons, and a fun backdrop.

I even did a sidewalk star for each of our young women.

And here they are - the YWIEs!!! We were so excited to hand them out!

Our refreshment table...

and the centerpieces for our audience tables. Our Stake YW president had taken pictures of each of our young women earlier in the year for a camp thing so I asked her to send us the prints in black and white. They turned out amazing! And the best thing was each of the girls got to take theirs home at the end of the evening.

In the back each of our young women displayed something they had been working on in Personal Progress or something that represented who she is.

Melissa started off the night with a great talk about Personal Progress and how each girl is a daughter of our Heavenly Father. Then, Melissa, Sommer, and I took turns reading off a description of one of the young women and then would say, "And the YWIE goes to...". We would then open a red envelope and read off the name of a young woman. She would come up and receive her YWIE and then either talk about a Personal Progress project or do a performance.

Savannah won the award for Most Likely to Laugh at Sister Hardy's Jokes.

Although she earned her YW medallion several years ago, she talked about how Personal Progress has helped her in her life.

Most girls talked about projects but we did have a few performances!

We have two seniors so they received a special trophy - Congrats on Adulting! Unfortunately Carolyn couldn't make it but both Melissa and I teared up as she talked about Genna and gave her her award.

A few last comments by Brother Paul...

and it was time for pictures!

I absolutely LOVE my calling in the Young Women!