New Beginnings 2017

After 4-1/2 years as Young Women's president of my ward, there have been a lot of things that have gotten a lot easier as time as gone on.   For instance, big events, like New Beginnings and Young Women in Excellence.   They used to stress our presidency out to no end, but now they seem to come together with a lot less stress.  

 I think this year's New Beginnings was the best yet.  It had a theme of Ask, Seek, Knock.  The decorations were simple, but cool enough to have "wow" factor.   The girls really came through and did their parts well and I loved that the theme really came together and we all left that night feeling inspired about how to seek answers our questions.  

Here are the wonderful Young Women I have the privilege of serving ... 

Ellie was thrilled to be one of the newbies (girls that turn 12 this year),  which meant that she got introduced to everyone and got lots of special attention!   She is sooooooo excited to be a part of YW!  

It was also so cool to see Nicole (who was just baptized in December) be introduced too.   Her and Maria even dressed in matching dresses and were cute as can be together! 

I am blessed to work with these wonderful women.  They've been in the long haul with me and I am grateful for their great ideas, willingness to work hard, and friendship!  

Here's the introduction that Emma read about Ellie:   

(Ellie opted to have her skip the part about her seizures)

When Ellie turns 12 in a couple of weeks, she will become the first new beehive in our ward in almost a year and a half. Energetic, cheerful, and creative, Ellie is the youngest of the five Goold kids and as such is an expert when it comes to dealing with annoying older siblings and delayed bedtimes. She loves all Broadway music, but especially Hamilton. When she’s not listening to Hamilton songs, that means she’s probably SINGING Hamilton songs, perhaps while cooking herself a quesadilla or playing with her Legos. Ellie is a world traveler who has been to 13 different countries and about 40 states, but she still hopes to get to Florida and Australia someday too. One thing Ellie would like everyone to know is that she has a form of epilepsy that causes her to have frequent seizures that cause her to pause in the middle of what she’s doing. They’re nothing to be nervous about, but if you happen to notice one, just be patient, and when her seizure is done you can remind her what she was saying, and Ellie will pick right back up where she left off. Ellie is very comfortable talking about them, so if you’re ever wondering something about them feel free to ask her questions. Just remember to be nice and be patient. And, on a more light-hearted note, I’ll finish up with a funny story about when Ellie was young. When she was a baby, she loved to suck her thumb. One time we were visiting one of our cousins who is only a couple weeks younger than Ellie and they were both lying on a blanket on the floor taking a nap. A little while later we checked in on them and found that Ellie was wide awake and had wiggled her way around and was happily lying there, not sucking on her own thumb, but happily sucking on her cousin’s big toe. All the while her cousin was still soundly sleeping. I promise, though, that she hasn’t sucked anyone’s toes in about 11-½ years or so! We are so happy that after years of tagging along with Mom and me to mutual, that Ellie will finally be an official young woman later this month. Welcome to Young Women’s, Ellie!

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Nothing but Pictures

I'm in over my head with life right now and I've got nothing left for blogging.  Nothing bad is happening; it's just a lot of different things pulling me in different directions and it's left me with  absolutely nothing extra.   I can't do creative.  I can't do stories.  This post is basically just a picture a day from the last week.       


February 23: One of our favorite youth activities of the year is ice skating and my kids love it.

A noble try for a diet friendly lunch from California Tortilla, but alas, it was way better looking than tasting.

February 24: Rain, rain, rain.

February 25:  Beautiful sunrise on the way home from dropping Emma off at seminary.

February 26:   Despite the fact that we've had these crazy good looking cupcakes sitting around our house for the last few days, I've stayed strong and haven't had a single bite.  And if you knew how much I like frosting, you'd know that that's actually a pretty big deal for me!

February 27:  Glen went to Colorado for the weekend to see Cami play in a lacrosse tournament at CU in Boulder.    His mom and dad also came, which was extra fun for Cami and Glen.

 Glen misses the mountains.

Cami scored two goals.  

February 28:  We had a wonderful New Beginnings program tonight.

I absolutely love these girls!

February 29:  It was  a beautiful spring-like day, which called for reading a book while hanging out of the sunroof (in a parking lot) and going for a quick walk around the block.  

Apparently it's also time for Adam to get his hair cut.  

New Beginnings

Last night was a special night for the young women at our church.  It is called "New Beginnings" and is a sort of kick-off activity for the whole year.  We introduce the yearly theme (Come Unto Christ), meet all the girls who will turning 12 and joining YW through the year, and hear how the individual young women live the YW values each day.   Each of these lovely girls (27 in all, plus another 4 coming during the year) played a part during the program in some way and I left there in awe at the  strength and beauty that emanates from each one of them.

When we realized that we had scheduled New Beginnings right in the middle of the Olympics, we decided that it was too perfect not use that as a theme for our decorations and food.  Besides the fun factor of the Olympic decor though, there were a myriad of spiritual corollaries to the Olympic athletes that made beautiful tie-ins to living the gospel as well.  One of the highlights was hearing about how Sochi silver medalist, Noelle Pikus-Pace, wore her YW medallion during all of her races and did shout-outs to the youth during interviews.

I'm blessed to work with these two lovely women, Julianne and Kelly,  who are my counselors and served as the Olympic commentators for the evening.  They are fun, fabulous, and a joy to work with (as are the other advisers and leaders as well).  

I love each one of the twenty-seven young women in our ward (church congregation) and am so proud of the way they choose to live their lives each and every day.  They are an inspiration to me and I am truly grateful for the time I get to spend with them each week.  

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A few things I learned this week..

 1.  Meteorologists are insanely incompetent and seem only interested in trying to hype / scare everyone into watching their station.  Seriously.   We got a hugely hyped forecast that predicted an 8-10+ inch snowstorm that ended up barely covering the grass and was mostly melted by the end of the day?  Nice. 

On the bright side, the kids got a day off of school, which meant they got to go sledding for the brief amount of time there was snow on the ground and build a snowman that met a soggy demise in the rain within an hour of building it.    I am now officially ready for springtime.  

2.  Doing Mad Libs with a 10-year-old boy can be pretty hazardous to your good senses. 

3.  Emma is an awesome planner.  She spent about 12-hours planning, shopping for, and preparing the food for New Beginnings.  She's using it as a 10-hour value project  for Personal Progress.  Look at how cute those Lorax Cupcakes turned out!!!!

4.  Being out of routine wears me out!  With one snow day, a 2-hour delay, Glen out of town, and kids home sick for 2 days, we are  living life on the edge of insanity.   I need some sleep and my weekend night owl teenagers don't seem very intent on letting me get it! 

5. Glen has really gained traction with his Team in Training momentum and might actually reach his $10,000 fundraising goal.  I am sad to admit that I was skeptical at first that he could do it, but he's soooooo close.  His marathon is next week. 

http://pages.teamintraining.org/nca/rnrusa13/ggooldnsbx

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Random interesting tidbit:
Here's a link to a recent article written about Glen and Spencer.  As Glen's marathon nears, interest in Spence's story is starting to pick up.  They've got a couple more interviews this week. 


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