You can download the agenda here.

The Visiting Teaching Message for May can be selected from a talk from our most recent General Conference. I dove into Elder Scott’s talk, For Peace at Home, and came out with this little 3-D house (shared with permission by artist Cally Johnson. More cute houses found here) that has lots of doors and windows that open and contain ways to have a more Christ-centered home. A picture of the Savior, along with a yummy truffle, fit snugly inside.

You can start out by printing the file download at the bottom of this post. Print page 1, the house image, on cardstock. Print the text on page 2 on regular copy paper.

Using an exacto knife, carefully cut along 3 sides of each door and window, and along all dotted lines. Gently push the openings open, to make sure all the sides and corners are completely cut. Next, score all fold lines and make sure the text lines up correctly behind your newly cut openings.

I then held up the house to a window so I could see the edges of the house, and applied glue all around – keeping clear of the openings, because we don’t want to glue our door or windows on top of the text. Press the house onto the text page, and cut out.

Next you fold, tape or glue – whatever works to get the house all put together. Leave the roof open to insert your picture and candy.

Punch holes in both sides of the chimney, then tie together with a ribbon. I hope you enjoy sharing this message of peace with this cute Christ-centered home! Download below:

English

Spanish (download this post in Spanish here)

Dutch

Russian

My husband is a graphic design professor, and a screen-printing enthusiast. Last year he set up a screen printing lab in our basement, and has been busy experimenting and creating art. He made this “Count Your Many Blessings” print, sized at 12.5″ x 19″ which can be trimmed down to 11 x 14″. It is hand-pulled 4-color screen print on 100 lb. French Construction White. I’ve added it to my Shop Locket account, along with the pizza fundraiser poster I posted earlier. If you are interested in purchasing either, you can click below!

The last couple years our young women have assembled bake-your-own pizzas to help offset the cost of Girls Camp. My husband made this flier for us this year, and I thought it might be a source of inspiration to other units trying to do their own fundraisers. (You can purchase a customized version here.) We buy all our ingredients from the cafe at Sam’s Club – cardboard rounds, pre-baked pizza crusts, sauce, cheese and pepperoni. We get a big assembly line going – one table for saucing, another for cheese and pepperoni, and another to wrap in plastic along with baking directions.

Does anyone have any other successful girls camp fundraiser ideas?

I put together an 8-day Easter “Walk with Christ” to share with my young women. I’ve seen several versions of this, and I simply adapted those to make my own. Each day you open an envelope and an egg and are led through the last week of Jesus Christ’s life.

I put the round labels on envelopes filled with the scripture references and daily stories. The rectangular challenges I put in numbered plastic eggs along with a few jelly beans. I then wrapped a “belly band” around the stack of 8 envelopes and gave the girls the eggs in a carton with the envelopes on top. I suggested they read the envelopes first, then open the eggs and read the challenge. They can put their challenges on their bathroom mirrors to help them think about it during the day, then eat their jelly beans before bed as they reflect on the things they learned that day.

You can download the Easter Walk printables below:

Easter Walk color labels

Easter Walk Stories

The April Visiting Teaching Message is about temple covenants. The teaching aid I’ve made for this month has a “stepping stone” path leading to a fold up temple filled with hearts.

The stepping stones represent ways we can prepare to receive sacred ordinances in the temple. The hearts have scriptures and a quote on them that refer to covenants and temple blessings.

I taped my stepping stones to Dove chocolates, and the hearts are taped to popsicle sticks. You can find the wonderful temple printable here (which has so many applications – I’m thinking table decor, FHE lessons and more!), and the download for the stones and hearts below:

English

French

Spanish  (click here to download entire post in Spanish)

Portuguese

Dutch

The March Visiting Teaching message talks about reaching out to others, strengthening the weak, and forming meaningful friendships with the sisters we visit. I’ve put together a teaching aid that goes along with these sentiments, and is also a fun Easter craft. Using the tutorial here, I used a starch mixture to stiffen embroidery floss in the shape of an egg.

You will need liquid starch (less than $3 at Wal-mart in the laundry aisle) and flour to make the stiffening mixture, water balloons, embroidery floss, and chocolate.

The printable I’ve put together has a couple quotes from the Ensign printed inside an egg-shaped card, directions to make the string eggs, and some symbolic references to it:

• The string represents us when we are “weak”.
• The glue strengthens the string, like each of us being edified through loving friendship – as visiting teachers we can ask sisters to Relief Society meetings, encourage gospel discussion, and cultivate spiritually uplifting relationships.
• The chocolate inside the egg represents the “better way”, or a faithful testimony of Christ.

I then wrapped up the eggs in clear cellophane and tied on the card with pretty ribbons. You can download my printable below:

English (also in English – but slightly larger sized card)

Portuguese

French

Dutch

With New Beginnings under our belt, it’s time to buckle down and get to work on doing our personal progress! We are having personal progress interviews this week with our young women, and will use these goal cards to help everyone get moving on completing experiences and projects. You can download the printable here.

Our New Beginnings program was last night – and it was wonderful. The young women were amazing and impressive as always, and lots of people came together to help us put the night together (and take it apart again)! We have many people to thank, so I’m putting together thank you cards for the girls to sign and deliver. I found this “You’re the Bee’s Knees” graphic at Detail Oriented Diva, and am using it with her permission. I was happy to find another way to use my butterscotch candy bees again!

The inside of the card has a thankful sentiment, and a definition of the phrase, “bee’s knees”: a highly admired person or thing.

My other thank you card has the shoes from our program on the front, and these sentiments inside: “You “shoe”did help make our New Beginnings a success!” and “We shoe-ly couldn’t have done it without you!” Oh, the puns!

I couldn’t decide which one I liked best, so I may print up a few of both and let the girls decide which card they will give to whom. These are two-page documents, so you will want to print the first page, then re-feed the paper back in the printer so the sentiment prints on the back side in the correct location. You can download below:

Bees Knees Thank You Card

You Shoe Did Help Card

I had so much fun putting together these class symbol gifts! I loved what another Young Women group did during their New Beginnings program – after introducing each class statement and symbol, they presented the incoming Beehives with a little gift.

These little bees made with butterscotch candies? I die from the the cuteness! I used self-adhesive googly eyes, then drew stripes on the wrappers with a black Sharpie. The candy wrapper ends make perfect wings.

I used double-sided tape to adhere them to the Beehive card, that was then tied to a tag with the Beehive class statement on it.

Hershey Kiss roses go perfectly with the Mia Maid class statement. I punched holes in the top and bottom and ran the chenille stem through the backside of the tag.

These laurel leaves have a surprise taped to their backs.

One Andes mint per leaf, tied together make a nice little package to add to the Laurel class statement. We will give craft gable boxes to our new young women when the program begins, in which they can place their class symbol goodies after each presentation.

You can download the class statement tags, Beehive card and Laurel leaves here.