A Walk To Remember

I really love serving in the Young Women's program. It's so much fun! Ever since I graduated from High School I have wanted to be a Young Women's leader. I had a long wait! I started out in student wards where we just had Relief Society. Eventually, I moved on to family wards, but I was always called to be in the Primary or the Relief Society. I enjoyed serving in those organizations, but still hoped to eventually end up in Young Women's.

About 18 months ago, I was called to be the Beehive advisor. Yippee!! I was sad to leave my primary class, especially because my daughter was in the class, but excited to finally make it into Young Women's. I really enjoyed getting to know the Beehives. What great young women they are! I also loved working with Jill Williams, the YW 2nd Counselor. I really miss seeing her every Wednesday.

Everything changed last September when I was called to be the YW president. Help! I was absolutely terrified! I had never even served in a presidency before, so I felt totally unqualified. Fortunately, I have a wonderful presidency and fabulous class advisors who make my job so much easier. At first I was really sad to leave my Beehives to work more with the Laurels. I still miss my Beehives, but I love being with the Laurels. I am truly amazed by how mature and responsible they are. And I've really enjoyed working with Sister Irene Hauver, the Laurel advisor. She's amazing! I love the great example she sets for the girls.

For our mutual activity last Wednesday, we went on a "walking picnic" that the class presidency had planned. One nice thing about working with the Laurels is that they are responsible enough to plan and carry out their own activities. Mostly I just show up and join in the fun. It's great! Anyhow, the plan was for us to get a little exercise by walking around to the the various Laurel's homes to pick up food for a picnic. We started at Shelby Simper's house, where we picked up chips and hoagie buns, then walked on to Madison Hauver's house to get juice and potato salad. From there we went on to Noelle Rust's home to pick up veggies for the sandwiches. We ended up at Brittney Teeples house. She brought out the ham, cheese, mayonaise and mustard. We had a great meal on her front porch. The weather was perfect! In the summertime I ask myself over and over again why I live in Southern Nevada. But at this time of the year I remember.

Here are a few of the pictures I took at the activity. Summer Simmons, one of the Laurels, helped me (Thanks Summer!) to fix all the red eyes. Here's the weird thing. Because it was dark and I was using the flash, ALL of us had red eyes in EVERY picture, exept for Irene and Madison Hauver. NEITHER of them had red eyes in ANY of their pictures. I am very puzzled by this phenomenon. Does anyone have any ideas about why that would be?

(From left to right) Brittney Teeples, Madison Hauver, Irene Hauver, Noelle Rust, Summer Simmons, Ashlie Simmons, and Shelby Simper

This is a picture of Summer and Ashlie Simmons. I'm so happy that Summer brought along her young sister. I'm hoping to see a lot more of Ashlie at our activities.

Here we have the whole Laurel gang. I'm so happy that everyone was able to come that evening!

Here we have Ashlie Simmons, Shelby Simper, and Summer Simmons. What cuties!

This is a picture of Brittney Teeples and Madison Hauver. We sure will miss Brittney when she heads off to school.

So, that was our Walk to Remember. I am excited to spend more time with these wonderful girls at all the fun activities we have coming up.