The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.
The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.
Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.
Where thickest lies the forest growth,
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold counsel with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.
we found on line for the back ground but wanted to add more 3D ish feel-our YW President found some tubes from Home depot then used wood putty to create tree texture and then painted to give color and dimension of a real tree.
There was a method to our madness throughout this whole process and most of it was based off of questions and ask. In Elder Ballards talk he said
“One of the most important questions your students may ask is “Why?”
When asked with a sincere desire to understand, “Why?” is a great
question. It is the question missionaries want their investigators to ask.
Why are we here? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why
should we pray? Why should we follow Christ? Often the “why”
questions lead to inspiration and revelation. Knowing our Heavenly
Father’s plan of salvation will help you answer most of the “why”
questions.”-
By Study and by Faith click here for the talk
We decided to display the questions (the girls wrote out in January) by printing them on dark paper cut out in heart shape and modpodge them on the trees making it look like they were carved. This was one of my favorite little touches of the night.
Elder Ballard also said “It is natural these days for people to go to Google when they have a question– especially if they might fear being mocked or feeling like their question is stupid” He goes on to say “Teach them about the challenges they face when relying upon the internet to answer questions of eternal significance”
So we had different areas around the room that spotlighted what we called “Sources of Light”- to show the various sources to turn to when we have questions. We plan to dig into each of these areas throughout the year as well.
We were very traditional with our reviewing the YW program, Values, Personal Progress, introduction of the the new theme for the year and introducing the upcoming Young Women. The gift the upcoming girls received was another inspired idea our YW President had, she had everyone of our current YW write little notes to each individual upcoming young women,iIt was suggested it be a little spiritual thought, their own phone number, or anything uplifting- totally up to them which was placed in a little treasure chest box. It was so cute and the upcoming girls loved it.
I have no doubt this night was inspired and I am so excited to implement this new theme into our lessons and activities this year but as I listened to President Eyring and Elder Hollands one on one I realized we as leaders need to up our game so we can be prepared to answer questions or know where to direct the youth to get those answers.
(Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.” In the above examples)
Willow Jager
March 22, 2017 at 9:46 pmWhat a beautiful night!
Ashley
March 23, 2017 at 5:44 amI don't find it coincidence that I stumbled onto this post via pinterest. This is exactly to a T the theme we are doing for our stake's Girls Camp. ASK… Are you Stumped? Kneel. The grove, having questions, how and where to ask… this is exactly what we are doing! It was so neat to read through your post. I'm curious about some of your decor. Where online did you get your grove scenery backdrop? How did you make the 'carved hearts' for the tree trunks? I LOVE those! We didn't quite know how to display our girls's questions. This is perfect!!
Charisse
March 23, 2017 at 6:01 amHi Ashley- I am glad you found us- that is what this blog is all about helping each other spark the inspiration. I will get the link to were she ordered the panels, and I will ask her how she prepared the hearts, I think it was printed then mod podged on, but I will get the exact details. Btw I am loving your stake camp theme 🙂
Mandy
May 11, 2017 at 9:10 pmThis is the same direction we are going for camp!!! So fantastic. I am looking for a few ideas for our faith walk. Ashley, I want to share some ideas. What is the best way to do that?
Charisse
May 12, 2017 at 9:37 amHi Mandy-thank you- I would love you to share ideas- would you like to write a blog post as a guest? or what were you thinking?
Ashley Howard
June 13, 2017 at 7:34 pmHi Mandy!
I’m sorry I’m just now seeing your comment. I’d love to share ideas with you! I’m so excited for camp & for having this theme. I’m glad to find other stake’s are doing it too! I’m beyond excited for our faith walk so I’d love to share with you! If you’re on facebook there’s a great group called LDS Girls Camp Stake and Ward Leaders you should join. Lots of neat ideas from all over! You can email me… atmarcelis@gmail.com
Charisse
June 14, 2017 at 9:44 amOh my goodness Ashley- thank you for sharing this group with me! I love it- we are heading to camp in 2 weeks-:)
Charisse
March 23, 2017 at 6:02 amIt really was 🙂
Mandy
May 30, 2017 at 9:15 amHow did you hang your sacred grove back drop. Mine came in the mail this morning and it is thinner than I thought. I am taking mine to camp so I won’t have a wall to put it up against. Any thoughts?
Charisse
May 30, 2017 at 9:47 amHi Mandy- we used a lot of thumb tacks and we also used a staple gun- let me know if you have any other questions
oohhhh I am so excited for you 🙂
Ashley Howard
June 14, 2017 at 12:12 pmAhh, camp is coming up so quick! You better post all about your time! We go the end of next month. I’m an anxious, excited & nervous wreck. Stake Camp Director is no joke of a calling. It’s a lot! haha. We got our backdrop pieces, too, and are thinking we’ll put grommets in it so we can hang it like a curtain. We’ll see if that works though. You could make a standing frame out of PVC pipe to hang it on. Another great FB group that discusses camp a lot is ‘LDS YW Leaders.’ I love blogs & FB groups where we can all share ideas with each other!
Charisse
June 14, 2017 at 1:26 pmSuch a good idea! wow stake camp directer is huge- Thank you so much, I would love (when you are done) to do a guest post- would you be down for that? Thank you so much for your input, I love it
Ashley Howard
June 16, 2017 at 7:33 amIt is quite the calling, that’s for sure! haha. I’m flattered & would love to do a post. Thank you! I’ll be sure to get lots of pictures of everything at camp!
Charisse
June 16, 2017 at 10:03 amYea, I am excited!!
Holly
August 8, 2017 at 9:40 pmLove this! We did the “Stumped? Then ASK” as one of our ward spiritual messages at camp for our girls. I was wondering how wide your backdrop was? I can see from the Amazon link that several options are available, and obviously it depends on the size room (and budget I guess), but it looks so nice covering the entire wall, I was just wondering how wide it was, to give me an idea on the size room you used. I’m trying to figure out which room in our building to use for an upcoming event. Also, did you just glue stuff onto the wood discs to say the value names? At first I thought maybe you had used a wood burner.
Charisse
August 14, 2017 at 1:25 pmHi Holly- I will look into the size of the panels- I know we did multiple panels (1 panel consisted of 4 pieces) in order to cover the wall in the relief society room. We had 35 young women so could not use a smaller room. Yes the girls glued on little twigs to spell out the value names, a wood burner would work and look really good.
Trisha Manwaring
September 29, 2017 at 9:54 amHi Charisse, Your New Beginnings looks AMAZING!! We are thinking of doing something similar for Young Women’s in Excellence. Before we go out and buy the panels (we are a tiny ward in New Jersey with a very limited budget) I was wondering if we could borrow or rent the panels from you? Obviously we’d be happy to pay to ship them both ways. Let me know if you’re willing to consider it! Best wishes & thank you so much for sharing this incredible event with us! Trish — trish.manwaring@gmail.com