This year our new beginnings program fell on St Patricks Day. We decided to use St Patricks Day as our theme. We found some great ideas online and added to them. We wanted to use "pot of gold" in our program. Our pot of gold represented eternal life. We did research online and found some New Beginning ideas about treasures. We ended up using an idea from sugardoodle.net titled "Treasures of the Heart"
http://www.sugardoodle.net/New%20Beginnings%20Program/Treasures%20of%20the%20Heart.shtml
This link from sugardoodle.net will lay out the entire program for you with the exception of the new value virtue and the poem at the end.
During the program we started by talking about "hope chests". We explained that you add earthly treasures to an earthy hope chest. But we also have "Eternal Hope Chests" that we need to fill with eternal treasures. After we introduced the theme each girl got up and added a treasure to the chest. The treasures are the values from personal progress. Each value has a little prop associated with it. The young women presented their value and used the prop to illistrate the value. The program is layed out very nicely on Sugardoodle.net. The value "Virtue" was not included in this program so we came up with our own illustration for this value. I found a wealth of information online about the new value and wrote a part for the program.
The final treasure which we will add to our treasure box is Virtue
"Now is the time for a return to virtue!"
A Return to Virtue
The attribute and value of Virtue has been added to the Young Women theme. "Virtue is a pattern of thought and behavior based on high moral standards. It encompasses chastity and moral purity."
The time has come for the young women of the Church to lead the world in a return to virtue. This is the time to be pure and to qualify for the guidance of the Holy Ghost. In the coming year we focus on the meaning of virtue, what young women can do to accept and act upon this value, and how this attribute can strengthen young women as they prepare to be worthy to make and keep sacred covenants and receive temple ordinances.
"I believe one virtuous young woman led by the Spirit can change the world."
I will prepare to enter the temple and remain pure and worthy. My thoughts and actions will be based on high moral standards.
Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. Proverbs 31:10
Ten Values of a Righteous Daughter of God
1.Faith 2.Honesty 3.Chastity 4.Humility 5.Self-Discipline 6.Fairness
7.Moderation 8.Cleanliness 9.Courage 10.Grace
The young woman who presented virtue brought up a picture of the Temple.
To end the program I found the poem online called a "princess in her castle". The young women that presented this poem wore a princess crown of her head.
I found this at www.ywconnection.com
A Princess in Her Castle
A little girl dreams of her fairytale story
When she’s a princess in her castle of glory
She sleeps and envisions that magical day
When her dreams all come true and she’s swept away
Swept away by her prince – her own shining knight
To her majestic castle of luminous white
Her towering palace a magnificent sight
That glistens by day and has a grand glow by night
She’s wearing a dress an elegant gown
It’s long and it’s white and it touches the ground
With a jewel-studded crown adorning her head
Holding a veil on this day she’ll be wed
Ascending her stairs with a spire above
She enters in to greet the man that she loves
For inside this castle her prince charming awaits
To join her forever in this wondrous place
Across an altar they kneel hand in hand
As they covenant together just as they planned
Promising the Lord they’ll love faithfully
They’re then sealed together eternally
Sealed in her castle – rich blessings out poured
For her castle on high is the House of the Lord…
From her dream she awakes but it doesn’t end here
The princess grows up and prince charming appears
They fall in love and just as she planned
To the temple of God they go hand in hand
But to her surprise it was not what it seemed
‘twas more wonderful and beautiful than anything she’d dreamed
She gazed at her prince in this wondrous holy place
As mirrors of forever shone from face to face to face
With reflections everlasting, beyond all the eye can see
She glimpsed the blessings held in store repeated eternally
From a little girl in dress-up rags to riches beyond compare
A fairytale end to her fairytale dream is an answer to her prayer
For this princess in her castle – tales can be reality
Happily living – ever after – into eternity…
- Sereh Newman -
January 2004
The poem was a great end for the program. We had a leader get up after the poem and bear testimony of the importance of personal progress. She told how personal progress can change your life and help you achieve eternal life.
For handouts we wrapped chocolate coins in bags and added this saying
These "treasures" will give us "a more perfect hope" than any kind of riches can buy, a "more perfect hope" for our future marriages and families, as well as eternal life with God and Jesus Christ. You have heard the phrase "you can't take it with you." This means that when we die, none of our material possessions, our money, cars, clothes, nice home will come with us. It will rust and rot away. But if we instead focus our energy on laying up "treasures in heaven,"
Refreshments were frappe using the green sherbet to go with our St Patty's theme.
