Bloom Where You Are Planted

In our small Branch in Bryan, Ohio we celebrated the R.S. Birthday by using the theme "Bloom Where you are Planted".

We use our enrichment night as that it was so close to the actual date of R.S. B-day date. We already had scheduled a gentleman to come in from a local nursery to talk about gardening and test soil samples that we each brought in from our yards. Needless to say it tied in perfectly. We read a wonderful story that talked about how we are all flowers in different stages of bloom and yet beautiful all the same. We had a bakery cake screened with R.S. Motto-

We decorated using the blue and gold, blue table cloths and I made little goodie bags out of gold threaded netting (bought during Christmas) in each bag contained small gifts that represented thoughts-

 (a little flower stamp the kind you use with paint or ink)

"stamp out the ugliness of the world and replace it with beauty"

(a chocolate kiss)

"Kiss those you love often"

(a pkg. of flower seeds from the dollar store)

"Plant beauty all around you"

(popsicle stick to stick to the empty pkg. of flower seeds so you know what you planted where)

"'Stick up' for what you believe in"

Country Heritage Celebration

We just had a great Relief Society Birthday Celebration. Many hats off to our Relief Society Presidency for the wonderful idea and their service to help the Sisters grow in our Ward.

Each of the Sisters were assigned groups to work in, to learn about a Province or Territory in our own country of Canada. We could present the Province/ Territory in any way we chose. We were also asked to bring a contribution to the Refreshments, native to our assigned area. We had two months in which to research, prepare and compile our ideas, for the presentation.

The evening of our celebration we gathered to make our presentations, we were greeted at the door by a R.C.M.P. Officer Cutout and Canadian Flags. (Our husbands and the Priesthood were invited to help with the celebration.)

The Cultural Hall was Decorated by the Sisters to represent their different Provinces and Territories. We received a Canadian Passport at the door. We opened with the Canadian National Anthem and our Scout and Venture Leader broke the Flag to open the Festivities, a prayer was given with a blessing on the refreshments. As we toured around to the different Provinces and Territories we received a small flag to glue in our passport. The displays were awesome and well planned and much work went in to the effort.

I know that I learned so much more about the country in which I live and am thankful for the opportunity I had to participate in this wonderful celebration. The displays and handout gave us so much insight into this beautiful country of the north.

No matter what country you live in it expands the mind to learn about it and you will always learn something that you never knew before. We are here to grow!

Kathy Howard, Cobourg, Ontario

Hawaiian Luau Celebration

We had our Hawaiian Birthday Celebration. The hall was set up beautifully.  We had a beach scene with sunset on it, we had palm trees all around the hall, sand, surfers and shells. The tables had lovely dark red cloths on them with flowers decorating it, and the tables also has shells on them. We had tarpaulin hanging from the ceiling and had Christmas lights around that to look like stars.

We started by welcoming them into the hall and gave them lei's, a flowers for their hair and their name in Hawaiian printed on a badge.  I welcomed them out once seated and handed the time over to my counselor who gave a history of Hawaiians, their traditions etc. 

We then played a game.  I demonstrated hand gestures and the ladies had to guess what they were.  We had things like rainbow, mountain etc. 

After that we had a talk on costumes, so we then had the sisters of each table dress someone at that table as a Hula girl.  We had materials on the tables and the best dressed received an award.  We then had a talk on music and a few of our sisters sang "Lovely Hula Hands".   Once they had sang we all got the chance to sing the song. 

Then it was the traditions and games.  We had sisters try to hula with a hula hoop and what a giggle that was as none of our sisters were able to do it.

Then we had fishing.  Obviously we had no fish so we blew up balloons and drew fish on them and had long spears and they had to see how many they burst.  Then we had bowling with skittles but instead of using a ball we used coconuts.  That was a giggle too.  They just didn't go straight as you can imagine. 

We then had our food which was lovely.  We had pork, salad, sweet potatoes, rice fruit, and we had pineapples with the insides taken out and fruit put in them. 

We had a number of sisters dress up. This was a great evening and everyone enjoyed themselves.

- Dawn

Party With History

We just had our March Relief Society Birthday and it was great! It was more a party feel this year, we really wanted to celebrate and learn about RS in the process. We had dinner with lots of birthday balloons and birthday cake and then we played Relief Society Squares (like Hollywood Squares) with a questionnaire I got online. The Squares were each one of the past General Relief Society presidents (we should have had them dress the part but we didn't have enough time!) We split the rest of the group (not the squares) into two groups and they were contestants: Patty Perfect and Molly Mormon. We had funny descriptions of them and then we played the game. IT was hilarious!

We all learned quite a lot about Relief Society history and pretty much enjoyed being together.  The turnout was our best yet at 41! Usually we get about 20 or so but it's been steadily increasing the last few months (I've really been trying to get everyone excited!) And so many people thanked me afterward for a fun night. I was so glad!

Happy Birthday Relief Society!

Melissa Franklin

My Sister's Hands

Last night we had our celebration for the organization of the Relief Society.  We always invite the sisters and their spouses and provide a nursery.  We served lasagna, salad and garlic bread, and for desert we had homemade pound cake with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. 

In between dinner and dessert we had a short program.  I had put together a slide show presentation (based on an idea I got here last year--thanks Leila Jones!) with pictures of several of the sisters in my ward doing things with their hands.  The pictures focused only on their hands--holding a baby, playing the piano, arms folded, straightening their husband's tie, holding the scriptures, etc. 

With some help, I took the pictures from my digital camera and made a dvd.  I showed the dvd while a sister in our ward, who has an amazing voice, sang the song "My Sister's Hands".  It can be found at www.defordmusic.com/mysistershands.htm  The presentation was very beautiful and moving and I could see the sisters responding as they recognized their hands in the different pictures.

I printed the words to the song on card stock and used a ribbon to attach a charm of a woman's hand holding a heart.  I bought these at www.charmingldsgifts.com .  I gave these out to each of the sisters.

After the program I talked for just a few minutes about how we can accomplish so much when we all work together and use our hands for good.  The whole program part only took about ten minutes.  I had a lot of positive feedback about it.

After the program we served dessert.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the evening and the majority stayed and pitched in with the clean-up.   We had a really good turnout--58 adults and 15 kids.  I was extremely pleased with how well things went.

Also, we had centerpieces that looked like women's hands holding flowers.  They were beautiful and went so well with the theme of the evening.  We always serve dinner "family-style" for this event, rather than making them all get up and go through a chow line.   People seem to like being able to stay at their tables and just pass things around.

-Heather in SC

National Treasure Theme

Here is my birthday dinner idea: I thought we could do a National Treasure theme and call it Relief Society Treasure, Book of Sisters (or something similar). We could all meet in the rs room to begin with and split into random groups. From there each group would be given some kind of clue that would lead them to different rooms in the church where a challenge would be set up. Each challenge would be something that would help them learn about the sisters in our ward.

Ideas I've had (I haven't thought enough about it yet, so we could easily come up with better ideas...) are:

A big Sudoku and instead of numbers have sisters names. A memory matching game where you match names with pictures of sisters. A scrabble board where they had to use the letters to make words that describe or symbolize each of the team members and place them in a scrabble/cross word puzzle format. etc. I thought we could do a survey before the meeting to find out interesting facts about people and either have them e-mail pictures of themselves or take some and then put those up around the church with facts about the sisters.  One of the challenges could be to find the sister who has produced a play, or went to Peru on her mission, etc.

The last clue would send them to the gym all set up for the dinner. On the tables for centerpieces would be treasure chests with mirrors in them...the theme being "The Relief Society Treasure is YOU!" After this we could have some

one talk about how we each bring something to our sisterhood and when we give what we have and work together we have great power to change lives.

I thought this would get them up and moving, it would allow them to talk and grow in their teams while learning about all the sisters and it would be fun!

-Kae Douglas, Smoky Hill Ward

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