Grateful for Young Women in Excellence

Even though I didn't get to attend our ward's Young Women in Excellence Night last night, instead I was at the urgent care clinic (that I couldn't even get into the night before....which was only one of ALL the urgent care clinics that were full up the night before.  Apparently we're a sick region!) getting poked, proded, weighed, measured, and finally prescribed to.

That didn't change the gratitude I have for the Young Women program, for their night of Excellence which focuses on our girls' achievements in their personal progress and goals for the past year. 

Mr LKP & I got done at the clinic, then picked up my prescriptions and back to our little one-horse town just in time to pick Mini-Me up from her evening (and Mr LKP even scored some refreshments from the shindig while he waited for our girl to gather up her stuff...this is loved immensely).  On the drive home, she was all aglow as she rattled off how the night went. 

She did well with her little speaking part (which she'd been nervous about), the girls sang THREE songs (and they for the most part went off without a hitch), and she RAVED about the decorations and how it was all set-up! 

It was good to know it all went well, as I remember both loving them as a young woman myself, and then again in assisting girls years later as their leader.  So for it to be Mini-Me's time is rather exciting and new all over again!

From that whole night, what I'm most grateful for is Mini-Me's renewed excitement of what she wants to accomplish for the next 12 months, and to hear the confidence in herself build as she realizes she can do hard things....and that she can make a difference. 

In short, I see how validated she feels in the Young Women's program and it makes me grateful for the inner strength she's gaining by completing each Value Experience & Value Project.  She is truly knowing, loving, and living the Young Women's theme, and I can see the difference it's making in her life!

"We are daughters of our Heavenly Father, who loves us, and we love Him.
We will "stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things,
and in all places" (Mosiah 18:9) as we strive to live
the Young Women values, which are:
Faith
Divine Nature
Individual Worth
Knowledge
Choice and Accountability
Good Works
Integrity and
Virtue.
We believe as we come to accept and act upon these values,
we will be prepared to strengthen home and family, make and keep sacred

covenants, receive the ordinances of the temple, and enjoy the blessings of exaltation." 

(The Young Women Theme of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) 

(Image courtesy of typetypetypeshop.com)

I love that Mini-Me absolutely KNOWS that she IS a daughter of Heavenly Father, who loves her (and she knows He loves her!)....and she most definitely LOVES Him!  It's refreshing, considering how many girls in our day who don't have this same knowledge.