Progressing Together

Even though your Personal Progress goals are individual, sometimes you can complete those goals at the same time as other young women, or you can help each other with value projects. Getting together with others for a Personal Progress activity can be fun. Here are some ideas of what you could do to progress together and have a great time.

Faith

To fulfill value experience 2, gather your Young Women class, either at church or in your home. Invite a few of the girls’ mothers or grandmothers to come, and ask everyone to bring a journal. (If a female family member cannot come, ask a Young Women leader who is a mother to come instead.) Read together the required scriptures and the proclamation on the family and talk about them. Hold a panel discussion with the mothers and grandmothers and talk about how to be a faithful mother.

Before the party, prepare one of your mother’s best cookie recipes to serve to everyone. While you eat, write your thoughts about motherhood in your journals. Make thank-you cards for the mothers and grandmothers, and have the girls sign them.

Divine Nature

For a value project, organize a cook-off or bake-off for the young women in your class or ward. Pick a convenient night, and have all the girls make and bring their favorite dish to be judged by a panel of your Young Women leaders. Or your bishopric might be willing to be judges instead. Learn to make a new dish, and submit your own entry as well. Make awards for each girl who has an entry. You can give awards like “Most Healthy Recipe” or “Best International Dish.”

Have all the girls submit their recipes. Compile them into a recipe book and, if possible, make copies for the young women. After the cook-off, teach a younger sibling or another young woman how to cook your dish. Deliver it to someone in your ward who could use some help with dinner.

Individual Worth

For value experience 7, play “I think you’re special because …” Get together with the young women and Young Women leaders in your class or ward and sit in a circle. You start the activity by choosing someone in the circle and saying, “I think you’re special because … ,” and then fill in the blank. The person whose positive qualities you pointed out then chooses someone else and does the same thing for her. Make sure everyone is chosen at least once before you start over.

Read the assigned scriptures individually, and talk to your parents about the activity. Have them list your positive qualities too, and write about what you learned in your journal.

Knowledge

For value experience 4, have the young women in your class, including yourself, choose a gospel principle to learn more about. When you have all chosen, spend a week researching the topic and writing a five-minute talk about it.

Get together over some treats with your Young Women leaders to share your talks with each other.

Choice and Accountability

For value experience 5, gather the young women and leaders, and have them bring their journals. Have each person choose a partner to read and discuss the first assigned scripture with. After each scripture selection, switch partners for the next scripture and discussion.

Write your feelings about the Holy Ghost in your journals, and share your testimonies with each other, including the ways you plan to be worthy of the companionship of the Holy Ghost.

Good Works

For value experience 6, rally the young women in your ward, and volunteer to clean your church building. Remember to work with those in the ward who are responsible for cleaning the building. Divide the building into segments, and give random assignments to the girls and leaders who come to serve. If there are enough girls and leaders, cleaning in pairs is more fun and faster than doing it alone. Get together afterwards for a short time to play games. Remember to write in your journals about your service experience.

Integrity

For value experience 3, get together with the young women and divide into three groups. Have each group take two of the assigned scriptures, and give the groups half an hour to prepare a skit about those scriptures. You can even ask people to bring items they could use as costumes.

Have each group perform and then talk about the ways the people in the assigned scriptures showed integrity. After the skits, invite the young women and your leaders to share an experience when they or someone else showed integrity.

Illustrated by Dilleen Marsh