Other ideas
One thing that a mother shared with me a few months ago was how she’d like to see the RS sisters duplicate what you experience in the temple when you go your first time. She shared how the sweet matrons are so friendly and abundant! You can’t go to the wrong place because they’re all there to help you and they make you feel so welcome. She said that she’d like to see the secret grandma concept reversed and have a group at least 6 women take on a secret grand-daughter who is soon to come into RS. She shared her vision of how they could do little things for the girl and get to know her making her
transition easier. I thought it was a GREAT idea!
Hugs,
Holly
“Two of the women in our RS presidency gave the lesson in the Laurel class this last Sunday. They came into opening exercises, in dresses that they wouldn’t wear, sloppy lipstick, knee highs, and grandma type stuff in their purses, etc. Their point was to look like the image that these laurels have in their mind about RS women. I guess they gave a great lesson and even gave the girls “Pop Rocks” and put a little paper over “pop” and wrote Relief Society. When they gave them those, they danced around”
When I was in the RS presidency, I put together a special welcome package and letter. The letter explained how similar the RS is to the YW – right down to a focus of a theme. We included a copy of the declaration and put it in the welcome package.
Now that I’m in YW, we’ve done the following to help:
* starting in January through graduation in May, we have the laurels attend RS once a month for the lesson. We choose the 2nd Sunday because that’s when a former YW leader teaches and we’ve found they relate better with this connection.
* RS invites our laurels to all the Home Family & Personal Enrichment meetings and does a special one in May for their graduation where the tables are decorated with pictures/details of the graduating laurels and a special welcome dinner is held. Our YW leaders make a special effort to be there and buddy up with the laurels at Enrichment night
* RS calls a sister to be a “mentor” to the new girls coming in – usually this is a former YW leader when possible. This sister is sometimes called to be her VT companion, and usually makes an extra effort to be friendly on Sunday and sit by them during RS.
* We do special things for the senior sisters in our ward like Widow Valentines, Secret Grandma’s etc. for activities to get the girls interacting with some of the older RS sisters.
Those are a few of the things we’ve been doing and they seem to be helping a ton!
Hugs,
Holly
Our YW have an end of the summer swim party and invite the RS Presidency and a cross section of RS sisters to mingle with the girls. The RS presidency present the YW coming into RS that year with the little bags and goodies to welcome them in.