Last month we decided to have combined activities every Thursday for the Young Men and the Young Women, each with a Christmas theme in mind. The first week we played Christmas Carol Pictionary up at the church. The name of the game is to try and draw the title of a selected Christmas Carol and have your team guess it before your opponents do the same. You don't get the full points however, until your team sings the Carol. It was fun and competitive, but I don't think we discovered any future Norman Rockwell's, or Pavarate's for that matter.
Week two we went out to see the Airdrie Festival of Lights. Tammy and Emma came on that one, as did most of the leaders kids. I don't think the youth were as impressed with the Christmas light displays as the youngens were, but there was skating, hot chocolate, singing, and camel rides for all to enjoy. I don't think anyone went on the camel ride though, it was $10 for a once around in a tiny fenced-in area, and I didn't trust the look of him anyways.
Week three we had all the youth bring plates of cookies to the church and we split up into groups and delivered them, with a song, to some of the less active members in our ward. Most weren't home but the ones we caught seemed to appreciate the gesture.
The last week of the month we had our activity on the Friday night down at my second counselor's workplace. There's a huge room upstairs with a large presentation screen that we hooked up an Xbox to, so the kids could play some bishopric approved video games. We ordered a bunch of pizza, had chips and pop, and the Young Women's President brought a birthday cake for everyone who had a birthday for that month, which were quite a few. My first counselor and I spent the whole night playing a rematch game of Risk with a couple of the youth, but as most Risk games go, we didn't have time to really finish it. Needless to say, I would have won. I guess that activity wasn't really a Christmas party so much as it was an end of the year, blow the rest of the budget party.
The Young Men always have great numbers for attendance in our ward, and one of our deacons accepted the challenge to bring out our one less active boy, who's been coming ever since. The young women struggle a lot more, but I think these joint activities have really helped a lot of them gel a bit better with the whole group. The end of the year party saw almost every young woman out, which never happens, so some good did come of it all. I continue to enjoy my calling, as busy as it gets sometimes, and it's been a real pleasure getting to know all the young people in our ward.
1 comment:
Next time try Settlers of Catan. We can usually finish a game in under and hour. It's a $40 game, so I'll understand if you don't want to shell out the cash. I don't make a commission on sales of the game, after all.
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