One of the goals of our Young Women Presidency is to get the girls motivated and working on their Personal Progress. We have been trying to show them that working on Personal Progress doesn't have to be hard and that the things in it are really just the things we do each and every day. It is there to help us to grow and we should be living the gospel each day and not just sometimes.

As the 2nd Counselor in our YW Presidency, that puts me in charge of the Beehives. We are a small ward, and we don't have very many young women in our ward. However, we had one girl get baptized this past month and we have another turning 12 right around Christmas. So I have gone from just one Beehive to three in just a couple of weeks. This is exciting for us.

My first Beehive has not done but just a handful of things in her Personal Progress to this point. And the other two are just beginning. So my own goal is to get them all started on the right foot this coming year. I requested at one of our recent Presidency meetings to have a week in January where I could meet with just my girls, as what I wanted to do wouldn't have as much meaning for the older girls. So we are going to do that the first week that we meet in January for Mutual.

In considering how to achieve my own goal, I came up with the idea of having my girls make Personal Progress Jars. These are similar to a journal jar, except instead of journal prompts, we will have each of the requirements for their Personal Progress on slips of paper. We'll decorate our jars and cut all the slips of paper up and place them in our jars.

I plan to have the slips color coded to their value. So if one of the girls were to draw out a slip of paper that is green, she would automatically know that she was going to work on something for Knowledge. Or if she pulled out a red slip, she would be working on Individual Worth and so on.

Once or twice a week, the girls will just pull a slip of paper from their jar and then work on that value and requirement. Some things they will be able to do quickly, and some others will take a little bit of time. But seeing their jar will help them to remember to make the effort to do it.

I am also going to teach my girls how to use the Personal Progress program in their LDS account. It is so easy and they don't have to worry about losing their books, which is an issue with one of my girls. By marking their progress online, they never have to worry about trying to figure out what they had done already. It will always be at their fingertips.

I also plan to remind the girls each week about their Personal Progress. It may be as simple as me asking them if they've used their jars that week. Hopefully with gentle reminders, encouragement, and giving them all the tools they need, they will catch the vision of what Personal Progress can do for them. Since I am also working on earning my medallion again, we can encourage each other along in the process. We'll find out who we are, and grow closer to each other and our Father in Heaven. A good beginning should help us to make our journey with ease.