2017 Activity Day Preview: Drawing Near the Savior by Developing and Sharing Our Talents

The past few years have been very challenging for me and my family. I have grown closer to the Savior while overcoming many personal challenges and was blessed with his loving grace. Along the way, I discovered in my healing journey some hidden talents that I ignored for many years. I decided to work on those talents and to my surprise my talents are multiplying as I have shared them with others.  I was inspired by the book 21 Days Closer to Christ by Emily Freeman, which I read and completed her journal challenges during 2016. I loved how she compiled many Christlike attributes to read and mediate on. She also encouraged me to read about the Savior's life and miracles he performed on the earth from the scriptures. It was an amazing experience for me, which I have been recommending others to try for themselves. After my wonderful journey, I decided to challenge my activity day girls and leaders to experience this journey as our 2017 Activity Day theme.

Invitations (my co-leader made these)

Preparations

For our first activity day before the preview, we did Article of Faith 13 game and a lesson on faith using The Living Christ document (to my surprise I found out the Young Women were studying this document this year too)! Now that is some true inspiration and no coincidence. We also had the girl each bring a rock to paint, which I was also inspired by Word Rocks from Dabbles and Babbles. The rock was left blank until our preview but I wrote down Christ like attributes/gifts on mine. Then wrapped a shoe box as gift to place the rocks in for an object lesson about Christ's attributes. We kept the rocks and gave them back to them during the preview a few weeks later.

The Preview Program

First, we had an opening prayer by one of the older girls and an opening song Faith on page 96 from the Children's Songbook. Next we introduced our activity day leaders and then I revealed our theme to the girls and their parents. I used the following church videos: Create by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf  and Christlike Attributes.  I also used Developing our Talents lesson helps from Embellish, which came from Gospel Principles lesson 34. I shared an example of my talents I have been working on the last few years layouts of my scrappy gospel topic journal (Christ's attributes layouts). I also used painted rocks with talents written on them as visual aids. I wrote down the following gifts on the colorful rocks: faith, hope, diligent, courage, virtue, charity, patience, obedient, humble, forgive, submissive, kind, grateful, love, knowledge, etc. Then I challenged the girls to find their painted rock and write down a talent/gift they aspire to work on this year. Lastly, I bore my testimony of my journey of discovering my hidden talents and increasing Christlike attributes. My co-leader then briefly discussed the Faith in God program and shared a summary of what to expect this year in our 2017 schedule. Then our Second Counselor in the bishopric shared some closing remarks. Lastly, we had one of our activity day girls give a closing prayer and bless our refreshments.

Decorations/Handouts

Sadly, I forgot to take photos of the event but it was decorated very cute with table cloths, table runners, many frames, flowers, rocks, refreshments, etc. We used colorful rocks, pictures of Christ by Greg Olson, framed The Living Christ document, and framed quotes came from the following sites: President Uchtdorf's quotes Deseret Designs. The Create handouts came from Deseret Designs and Activity Day Progress Tracker came from My Computer is My Canvas. We sent the girls home with a framed "create" quote, Faith in God booklet, 2017 attribute lesson plans and schedule.

Attributes Lesson Plan for Activities.