Young Women in Excellence 2013

We had a really great Young Women in Excellence last night! Our theme was purse-sonal progress. Photos speak volumes, so here they are!

The invitation:

The set-up:

The program:

We showed this video--I love this story and the church did a great job putting it in video form, as usual.

Here was the highlight of the evening: instead of table displays of the girls' accomplishments, we rounded up as many cute and colorful purses as we could find, then gave a purse to each of the girls the Sunday before our event. We asked the girls to put their personal progress accomplishments INSIDE the purse, and asked them not to put their names with their stuff. All the purses were gathered back up, then placed on the tables at YWIE. After we showed the video, we had each girl and her parents take a purse that was not her own, and review its contents. Then they got to guess whose purse it was. When they guess correctly, the YW owner of the purse stood and told what each item meant. It was a fun way to spotlight each girls' personal progress accomplishments. We have a ward full of amazingly talented young women!

It seems like our program had a lot of speakers, but each were brief (me, the Stake YW Presidency, the ward YW President, and the Bishop).

The girls each got to take home a paper purse.

Inside the purse were items found in most purses, but with a YW value twist!

White tissues because when we have faith to share our testimony, we sometimes shed tears.
Blue mirror to remind them that they are created in God's image.
Red coin purse to remind them that their worth is priceless.
Green notebook so they can write down all the knowledge that comes to mind.
Orange gum to remind them to "chews" the right.
Yellow hand sanitizer to help them keep hands clean while they continue to use their hands to serve.
Purple chapstick to remind them to speak with integrity.
Gold temple recommend because maintaining virtue will help lead them to the temple.

UPDATE: You can find all the labels here, but keep in mind that some labels might not fit because all products/brands are different.

You can download the purse invitation and program here. I did not use the side gusset.

You can download the paper purse take-home gift here. I enlarged it to fit a 12x12 paper.

Our treats were amazing (put together by our YW presidency). I wish I had a picture of the table with all the cookies, but some cookies arrived a few minutes before we started and I was too busy talking to snap a photo. You get the idea though.

It was a fun, fun night!