2014 General Women's meeting

The General Young Women's meeting will be streamed live at 6:00 pm MDT on Sat, March 29, 2014.  If you cannot attend locally, it will be streamed at this following link: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/watch?lang=eng  Put up the announcement on Facebook at this link:  https://www.facebook.com/events/1421599138078148/
The link for General Conference is this https://www.lds.org/church/events/watch-april-2014-general-conference?lang=eng
 

Come, Follow Me: Young Women 2014 E-book and other great LDS.org Resources

Did you know that the Come Follow Me: Young Women is available in E-book format?  It is and you can find it here at this link on LDS.org http://www.lds.org/media-library/ebooks?lang=eng  And just for your information, it comes as a PDF, ePub, Kindle/mobi, and can be accessed at the iTunes Store, and at the Amazon Kindle Store.  On that same page, you can also access the Sunday school, Come, Follow Me. 

I thought that since the Young Women are so actively using their iphones, smart phones, and many of them have E-book readers, they would certainly think their YW leaders were cool, if they were teaching their lessons by electronic means.  This eliminates lots of paperwork.  The church is encouraging all of it's members, whenever and wherever possible, to use their electronic devices  and that cuts down on the cost for the Church in printing lesson manuals, and the money can be sent to help with missionary work instead!  One concern though.... sometimes the youth want to bring their own electronic devices to church.  They are not using them in a way that you would want and do create a distraction in class.  I cannot tell you how many youth I see playing games on their phones, or texting, etc., in Sacrament meeting.  My suggestion during class:  unless you are teaching a lesson where you can have the youth follow along with their scriptures, or look up things on LDS.org, or for some Sunday purpose, have them turn off their phones during class.  They are a huge distraction for youth and their teachers.  In my own ward, the Priest's are now a NO PHONE or Device class, so they can focus on preparing them to serve missions.  It might be something you might want to consider.

Also, if you used your electronics (computer, ipad, phones, etc.) you could also have access to all that LDS.org has available as visual aids, pictures, videos, conference talks and so much more.  You would need to make sure to download your videos, etc., on your electronics, before you teach your lesson on Sunday, because sometimes the church meeting houses has limited bandwidth.   With so many members using their electronics and the bandwidth,  you may not be able to bring it up, which would pretty much frustrate you trying to give a beautiful lesson.  Download it to your computer before you teach, t hen you don't need to worry if you will have your video, or other things for your lesson.  (Some videos are not available to download, because of copyright issues or other rights concerns, so be sure you pick one that is downloadable.)

Did you know that you can use the images found on LDS.org for your personal use, which includes use in your Sunday lessons, handouts, invitations to YW programs and activities, and FHE and such? The key word is for personal use, but that includes church use.  No Commercial use.

Mobile apps: Did you know that there are a bunch of mobile aps available?  Yes there are and there are some that specifically will benefit the youth.  These are OFFICIAL LDS apps, so you should know about these and encourage the youth to get them.  Maybe an activity night might be a good way to teach them about what is available from the church.  Here is the link that will take you to the Mobile App page on LDS.org: http://www.lds.org/pages/mobileapps/apple?lang=eng  Look specifically for the LDS youth app for iPhone and iPod Touch.  There is also the Book of Mormon, Scripture Mastery, LDS Music, Bible Videos, the Ensign, and more.  Be sure to also check out the Mobile Apps for Android as well that can be found here: http://www.lds.org/pages/mobileapps/android?lang=eng

Church Magazines:  All the Church magazines are available online for free now days.  You don't have to purchase a hard copy, though it is nice to have in your home too.  For the Youth, here is the link to the New Era page on LDS.org http://www.lds.org/new-era?lang=eng  You can read the current issues, or all the others in the archives, dating back to 1971.  This is a great resource for not only the youth, but the leaders, for their lessons.

Without going into detail, here are some other really important links to pages that will really help when working with the Young Women, and the Youth as a whole.

Young Women Page on LDS.org:  https://www.lds.org/callings/young-women?lang=eng


Youth Website:  https://www.lds.org/youth/activities?lang=eng

Personal Progress:   https://www.lds.org/young-women/personal-progress?lang=eng

Scriptures:  This link is the link to the Book of Mormon, but you can also get access to all the other scriptures on the column to the left from this page.  https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm?lang=eng
Did you know about the darling scripture stories in video? Bible Videos of the life of Jesus Christ, and if you look under "Video Categories at this link: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video?lang=eng  you can see all the Video Categories, including Book of Mormon, New Testament, Old Testament, Church History, feature films, and sooooo much more!

Well, I think I had better stop now.  I just love LDS.org and I am also currently serving a service mission for LDS.org on the Response Team.  I love this church and love how forward thinking they are in using the most current technology available, and constantly improving upon a great website resource for it's member, and nonmembers alike.  I hope you will visit LDS.org and see what more there is available to you as a leader, teacher, and member of this wonderful church.  Best regards, Katie G.




 

iPodd Skit for New Beginnings

I have had so many requests for the iPodd skit that my ward did for New Beginnings, and once in time, I had it posted on this blog.  Over time, and two computers, I lost the skit and my dropbox links, but I have now located the skit once again, for you all to enjoy.  I have posted the dropbox link that has the iPodd skit script, back on my post of 2011, and I have other things that we used for that wonderful evening also posted there.  If you want the skit, click HERE, and it will zoom you back to 2011, to that post.  The link is found in that post.  ENJOY!  Katie G.

2014 Young Women Theme Song sheet music

 

https://www.lds.org/youth?lang=eng

So it is finally here.  The song you have all been waiting for is finally here!  Woo hoo! You can find the link to the video, music, and sheet music at this link, on LDS.org. https://www.lds.org/youth/video/come-unto-christ-2014-theme-song?lang=eng 

It appears there might be a tiny glitch in getting the sheet music PDF though, because I was able to get it using my internet explorer browser, and google chome, but when I brought it up using firefox, half of the notation was missing on each page.  I have reported the error, so hopefully it will be fixed, but in the mean time, use one of the other browsers to get the music.  Heres the link https://www.lds.org/youth/bc/youth/theme/2014/Come-Unto-Christ-Folio.pdf?lang=eng


This poster image from LDS.org which is the Logo for the year can be found here:  https://www.lds.org/youth/bc/youth/theme/2014/PD50051100_000-2014-FSY-Theme-Poster.pdf?lang=eng
I wanted to share with you some ideas that I have for this theme.  I am sure that none of you know that I am serving as a service missionary for LDS.org's Response Team, but I work from home on my computer, answering the questions, comments, and such that people ask when they are on LDS.org's different pages.  One question came in about the YW theme for 2014, and the question was asked: "Since the walking stick is the logo for this years theme, how did the General YW presidency come up with that logo, and can you give any detail about it?"  Well, this was one question that I was not able to answer, because thought we as response team members do our best to answer every question that comes in, we are not able to contact General Authorities, or any Church leaders.  So, I got my mind going and felt I was inspired to suggest some unofficial meanings of the shepherds crook for that young women leader.  Please remember, these are just my ideas and are totally unofficial, but great ideas.  You will be inspired to come up with many others of your own.

Significance of a shepherds crook

"I can give you an educated guess, nothing official, but once again it is a guess, and idea that you have probably had as well.  Our church uses lots of symbolism, and this object has a lot of symbolism attached to it.   A Walking stick as you call it, is actually called a shepherds crook, which allows the shepherd to reach out and draw a sheep to him with the crook.  This is symbolic of a shepherd, and as you know, another name for Jesus Christ, is the good shepherd.  The scripture taken from Moroni 10:32 says in the first three words, "Come unto Christ."  You could use another term... "draw near unto me," which once again, is how a shepherd uses his crook to draw near, a sheep to him.  I would also think that a shepherd would use his walking stick or crook as a weapon, against predictors who came to try to steal or kill one of his lambs.  It was a protection for not only the shepherd but for his sheep.

This may be a stretch, but shepherds are known as lowly and humble people.  Jesus Christ came to earth in the most humble of circumstances, and who were the first to witness His birth? None other than the humble shepherds, whose birth was heralded by an Angel, sent from God.  God chose humble servants to witness the most wonderful event that has ever happened in history.  We too must be humble like the Shepherds, in order to draw near to, and Come unto Christ.  We are told that we must become as a little child in order to enter into the kingdom of God, and humility is another symbol that I believe is connected with the shepherd and his crook. 

I think that a shepherds crook is symbolic in other ways such as in Biblical times, you would see leaders like Moses, and others with a stick in their hands.  If you think literally of a walking stick, you would understand that they were literally used to help them walk down the unpaved, and bumpy dirt paths, which could be another way to draw symbolism into an object. (leadership - Jesus is our exemplar/leader) I could go on and on, but I am sure you can too, and come up with many way to tie in the shepherds crook. as I can.

Another thing that I thought about since we have just celebrated Christmas, the candy cane is also a symbol of the shepherds crook, and when you turn the candy cane upside down, it forms the letter J for Jesus.  (You might want to stock up on the after Christmas sales candy canes for using them throughout the year as symbols of the shepherds crook.

Have fun with this theme as well as a great time with the Young Women. Your calling is a fun and very rewarding one.  You will be blessed for your efforts as well as your YW will be so blessed for having you as their teacher and leader."