Young Womanhood Recognition Award

Yea!  It's complete!  I finished the requirements for the Young Womanhood Recognition Award!  I now proudly wear my new medallion. Funny story, I actually OVER finished the requirements.  As I was writing my testimony in the back of the book, I read and discovered that leaders only have to do three of the value projects.  I guess that serving in young women counts for the rest.  I didn't read that before, so did all eight of the projects.  But I'm glad.  I'm all the better for it.  I have loved working on this.  It truly has helped me stretch and grow.  I actually earned this award about 25 years ago when I worked in young women then.  So now I need to figure out how to wear both medallions at once.  I love the young women program and the young women!

My worn out personal progress book.

The accompanying journal

The value ribbons with the bookmark.  I'm not sure I will ever figure out how to put this together!

Personal Progress: Integrity

I really enjoyed working on the goals in integrity for personal progress.  One of the experiences included reading from the scriptures many references to people in the scriptures who showed integrity.  That was a very meaningful and eye-opening exercise for me. Some of those included were Queen Esther, Paul, Joseph Smith, Joseph of Old, and of course, Jesus Christ.
Another of the experiences I did was read a book called "Covenant Keepers" by our prophet's wife, Wendy Watson Nelson.  Here is the short review I wrote of that book:

I loved this little book by our prophet’s wife. I was especially moved by her teachings and experiences with angels,

“We could also say it this way: As we keep our covenants, we can ask for angels to help us. Literally!”

She goes on to explain how she learned this truth and gives examples. This little book made me grateful for the protection and blessings of my covenants. 

For my value project, I served as an ordinance worker in the St. George temple- a project that took well over the required ten hours.  In fact, one shift was six hours and I served there for over a year.  I especially enjoyed serving as a veil coordinator.  It is a privilege to serve in God's house.

Personal Progress: Divine Nature

To earn my divine nature ribbon, I took on a big challenge for my project. Here's the story:
 When I was in high school in 1973, a very popular new movie came out called "The Sting."  I went to it on a date with Rick Hurst.  I remember it really well.  The movie was entertaining with a surprising twist at the end.  But maybe the best part was the music.  The theme song of the movie was "The Entertainer" by Scott Joplin.  It was catchy and it still is the background music for commercials, etc.  I loved the music.  Since then, I have wanted to learn to play it on the piano.  There are many simplified versions available, but I wanted the original.  Motivated by this project, I  ordered the music and started learning it.  When I first started, I was overwhelmed as the music is really too hard for me.  But I was determined.  Each time I practiced, I took my phone to the piano with me and timed my practice sessions.  My purpose was to make sure I spent 10 hours on it.  I should have known it would take me much longer than that. I have worked hard to learn this difficult piece.  It is so satisfying to be able to play it now.
Though not perfect ( and it probably never will be,) I decided to record it . . . and record it . . . and record it.  I never will get a perfect recording, but I got one I was pretty happy with.  I tried to post it on here, only to have it rejected because it was too long.  So, I will record it in two halves.  The first one, you will recognize; the last half of the song (on the second recording) is less well-known, but I have come to love it as much.

I think this was the most difficult of all the projects for me, but very rewarding.

Personal Progress: Individual Worth

For my Individual Worth Project, I did this blog!  One of the suggestions for a project in this value is that you write a personal history and add pictures.  I thought, "I already do that!"  Our blog is our family history with pictures, including family events, holidays, vacations, general conference reports, my favorite things, Ken's adventures, my mantras, a few recipes (though I also do a food blog with my daughters and post most of my recipes there ) many book reports (I write a review of every book I read- and that's a lot), and some "Merry Musings" of mine. The requirement is that you spend at least ten hours on your project.  I have spent three hours just today on blogging.  I have spent many, many more than ten hours.  My goal specifically was to get caught up on my all the time goal of posting twice a week.  I was about five posts behind, but as of today, November 18th, I am caught up.  I am still behind on posting about the happenings of our life, but I am caught up with my goal.  I feel that blogging is a way to keep perspective in life, and keep a record of our lives.  It also helps us stay connected with friends and family. Thank you for coming to and reading our blog!

Personal Progress: Knowledge

For one of my value experiences in the value of knowledge, I learned more about church history by reading the book Saints, Volume 1. Following is the report I wrote of the book:

This is a very interesting and very readable history of the early days of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints.  I have read Ivan Barrett’s “Joseph Smith and the Restoration” a few times (I love that book!,)  but still there were many history stories that I hadn’t heard before.  It made the history so personal and interesting.   I am grateful for those who spent many hours researching, preparing, and writing this book.  I have to admit that I was disturbed by some of the accounts and stories.  But overall, it is a faith-building, informative, and well-documented history of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ on the earth.

I also learned more about the Vietnamese boat people by reading the book Where the Wind Leads.  Here is the report I wrote on that book:

I loved this book.  It was a story of a family of refuges and their flight from Communist-ruled Viet Nam.  You may remember the boat people from that era.  The author was one of those boat people rescued from a small boat when on the verge of death from dehydration.  I loved his story of survival and determination.  And I loved how he recognized and gave credit to God for his family’s survival.  I recommend this book to anyone looking for a good and uplifting read. 

Either of the above could have been my value project as both took well over ten hours, but I did another project.  When Joan came to visit in June, she bought me supplies and taught me how to crochet a lap quilt or afghan.  I then purchased more yarn and made one for my granddaughter, Brielle for her birthday.  I spent many hours on it.

Before sending it to Brielle for her 13th birthday in November, I took several pictures of it.

All wrapped and ready to send.

I found I really love crocheting and am grateful to Joan for teaching me how.  I think I will be making more of these warm, soft blankets.

Personal Progress: Good Works

For my Good Works value project,  I did family history work.  That included finding names with ordinances that needed to be done and doing temple work for these relatives.  It also included enlisting the help of many family members to help in getting the ordinances done.  Many accepted that challenge.  I spent a lot of time preparing cards to send out to people, always including self-addressed, stamped envelopes for them to mail the completed cards back to me.  

  Most prominent was the work of Patty and Hal Mickelsen, my sister.  About the time I started the project in earnest, they were called on a mission to the Hilo, Hawaii temple where they served for a year.  During that time, they had the opportunity to do many saving ordinances for our family members.  They were so faithful at completing the work and sending back the cards.  

Others that have helped:  Ken does by far the most (he was baptized 125 times one day!), Kristen, Jared, and Brielle Mackrory, Shonna and Blake Cameron, Michelle and Brian Prince, Nan and Clark Hinton, Joan, Whitney and Tom Morris, Pam and Roger Stratford, Mark Hinton, Jim and Leslie Hinton, , John and Cindy Gabrielsen, Rick and Sherrie Hinton, Don and Ada Hinton, and many children and other relatives of the above, including Micole and Sean Hinton and Ali and Justin Allen. Also, the young women of my ward have helped with the baptisms, as well as a young adult young woman in our ward, who loves to do the baptisms.  Oh man, I hope I haven't forgotten anyone.  I am so grateful to each and every one.  It is impossible to say when this project is complete as it is ongoing, something I work on almost every single day.  And I will probably continue to do so for the rest of my life.  I love doing family history work.  A couple of weeks ago, I counted the cards that we have completed.  There were 675.  Since that count and since I wrote up the project in my personal progress book, we have accumulated over 100 more cards (Patty sent a batch, and Ken and I both have done a lot of Initiatory ordinances.)  I need to explain that there are far more endowment ordinances than we can do, so I share a lot of those with the temple system.  So, sometimes a completed card is just the baptism, confirmation, and initiatory ordinance.  It has been a joy to be part of doing these essential ordinances for our forbears.

Completed ordinance cards

The work has been/ is being done in many temples.

An impressive stack of completed ordinance cards.  675 to be exact.

I keep the cards separated in envelopes by what ordinance needs to be done next.  You may notice one envelope marked "Sharing Box at the Temple"  This is a great idea in theory- you put up to 10 cards in your stake's box.  Then stake members can help you by taking a card and doing the work.  But it hasn't been too helpful to us.  There are so many cards in our stake's box, and few have been done from there.  I have to admit, it is a huge disappointment to me.  I so looked forward to the completion of the cabinet that holds the boxes.  But it hasn't done what I hoped.  It was after a few weeks of having it that I started sharing endowments with the temple system.

This has been a great project for me, and continues to be.  If you would like to help by doing ordinances, your help would be very much appreciated.  Right now, we are pretty caught up on baptisms, confirmations, and initiatories, but need help with endowments and sealings- especially endowments.  I will send you however many you would like.  Together, we can help a lot of our ancestors in work they cannot do for themselves.

Personal Progress: Choice and Accountability

Choice and Accountablity is all about making good choices in life.  For my project, I chose to spend time productively and wisely by indexing on lds.org.  My goal was to index and/or review 4,000 records.  As you can see, I exceeded my goal and since I took this picture have done many more.  

There are certain projects I enjoy doing on indexing, but others I really don't like.  So I wait for the "good" ones to come up, then download the maximum ten batches at a time and go to town.  It is fun and rewarding work.  I feel like it is indexing that has opened up so much of the family history work that I do.  I am grateful to other indexers for that.  I like to feel like I am helping others in their family history work.

Sign up for indexing.  It is fun and a good way to spend free time.

Personal Progress- Virtue

The value of "Virtue" was added to the young women list of values since I last earned the personal progress award.  To earn this value ribbon, you must do four required value experiences, read the entire Book of Mormon, and record your testimony of The Book of Mormon.  It differs from the other value challenges, as everyone does the same four experiences and everyone reads the Book of Mormon for the ten hour project.  

I have read this book many times in its entirety.  My husband and I read from it every day.  When we finish it, we start again.  We have done that for many, many years.  I do not know how many times I have read it.  I know it is true and the most correct book on earth.  I want to record my testimony about when I first received a testimony of this sacred book:
Many years ago, when I was a young mother- nursing my youngest daughter- I read the Book of Mormon in about six weeks.  I was serving as spiritual living teacher in Relief Society at the time.  I saw that the lesson I would teach in a couple of months was on the Book of Mormon.  I realized that though  I believed the Book of Mormon was true, I didn't know it was.  So I set the goal to read it in its entirety before I stood before the sisters, so that I could bear a sure witness.  I expected to read the book, pray about it, then receive the witness as Moroni promised.  But my experience was different from that:  each time I read from the book, I was filled with the spirit and I knew it was true.  It was a feeling of great joy.  To this day, I can vividly remember sitting in the od wooden rocking chair in Michelle's room, reading as I nursed her.  Tears streamed down my face as the spirit bore witness of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.
Just tonight (October 5, 2018) in the women's session of conference, President Russell M Nelson challenged us to read the Book of Mormon before the end of the year, almost as quickly as I did so many years ago.  I pray I will have as wonderful experience as I did then.  He promised us the heavens will open if we accept and act upon his challenge.  I know the Book of Mormon is true.
I testify of that in the name of my Savior, Jesus Christ.

Personal Progress: Faith

I completed my Faith value for Personal progress.  I did the value experiences, as required.  For my faith value project, I read my great-grandfather's missionary journal (before that I helped transcribe it under the direction of my sister, Patty).  His name is Isaac Fox.  I wrote a review of that book and published it on this blog.  I will republish it here.  I then sent my review to my mission president, who is the great grandson of Joseph F. Smith who my great grandfather served with on his mission.  I got back a very nice reply from him.  The project took me well over the required 10 hours.

Review:
My great-grandfather was a faith-filled man.  Reading his journal was/ is a blessing in my life.  It made me realize and ponder the fact that I am part of grand family.  I stand on his shoulders.  One of the last things I did before we left on our mission to Japan, was to finish transcribing the part of his journal that I had been assigned.  I was privileged to transcribe what I think was the hardest part of his mission.  He and a companion were sent to the Big Island of Hawaii.  He got extremely seasick on the way there.  The conditions and food were deplorable.  He had to hike over lava rock, live in unsanitary conditions, and often eat rotten food, if there was any food at all.  He was very homesick for his wife and family and longed for letters from home, which didn't come.  He couldn't communicate, as he didn't speak the language well, and people were often rude and unaccepting.
All of that was fresh on my mind when we embarked on our mission.  We had difficulties, but I often compared our conditions to his, and recognized how blessed we were.  We had a nice, new, and very American apartment with good heating and air conditioning.  We traveled by car.  We had access to good, clean food- and were able to shop at Costco occasionally to purchase even American foods.  The people were accepting and loving.  We could communicate by texting and skyping with our family regularly and by email frequently.
As we served, I felt Isaac's support.  I don't know how to describe it, other than I truly felt I was standing on his and my other great-grandfather's (Andreas Peterson's) shoulders, and that they were helping me serve.  I especially felt Isaac when I worked in the music and started a little branch choir.  I didn't speak the language and it took everything I had ever learned to do what I did.  I felt him helping me, as he had done the same thing- organizing a band and a choir in Hawaii in a foreign tongue.  He knew what to do and helped me.
I loved his sense of humor.  Even in his difficult circumstances, he found ways to laugh and make jokes.  I loved his tenacity.  He struggled learning the foreign language.  Boy, could I relate.  But he kept at it, and in the end, was leader over the whole island of Oahu.  He conquered.  I loved his integrity.  He stayed true, even in trying circumstances.  I loved his diligence.  He wrote in his journal most days.  Most of his entries were repetitive.  But he kept at it.  What to him, I'm sure, seemed like a boring journal, has become one of the foremost sources in the history of the church in Hawaii.  His day to day writings are the foundation for many papers written about that period of time.
Some of those papers and historical reports are included in the back of the book.  Reading those, gave me a sense of the power of this humble man's journal.  Because he served with President Joseph F. Smith (who was in the First Presidency at the time and was in Hawaii to avoid authorities seeking him because of polygamy charges) every detail of what he wrote has become very important in the history of the church.  He was with President Smith when he finally obtained the Spaulding Manuscript for a short time and Isaac helped copy it for the church.  That alone is a huge contribution to the history of the church.
I think this has taught me that simple, everyday work and ministering can make a big difference- an eternal difference in peoples' lives.
I have to think that Isaac and Joseph F. are still friends in heaven and that they had a hand in our serving in Sendai, Japan.  Let me explain.  You probably know the story of our mission call.  We had arranged with a mission president in Wisconsin to serve there.  We thought it was a done deal.  Then we got our call to Sendai, Japan.  Our mission president was Jeffrey Smith, the great grandson of Joseph F. Smith.  Isaac and Joseph F. served together.  They wanted their great grandchildren to serve together.  It may be a coincidence; but I think not.
I am so very grateful for the worthy example of my great-grandfather, Isaac Fox. 

This is the reply I received from our mission president, Jeffrey R. Smith
Sister Hinton,

Reading this brought chills to my spine!  Thank you so much for sharing your blog and your thoughts!  I too think it was no coincidence we served together in Sendai, Japan!  What a blessing you are and were to us!  

Sincerely,

Jeff Smith (Kaicho!)

Young Women's Personal Progress Award

I'm old.  I'm 62.  I earned the Young Women Personal Progress award about 20 years ago when I served in Young Women.  When I was called to serve as the 1st counselor in Young Women now, I decided I would earn it again.  It helps me see what the girls are doing and helps me offer suggestions to the girls who are working on it.  The church recently announced that the program will be replaced at the end of 2019.  I plan to earn the medallion well before then.  If a young (or old) woman really, with integrity, achieves each of the goals in this book, it will bless their life as well as those around them.

This is the book that describes the goals and activities to be achieved.  It, along with my journal, are my frequent companions now.

This is a picture of the medallion I earned twenty years ago.

This is a picture of the medallion and how it looks now.  I hope to post a picture with me wearing one before too long!