Our invitation
My centerpiece/visual aid for our themeThursday was our Quarterly Home, Family and Personal Enrichment Meeting and we had a fantastic night - I hope many women were as touched as I was. Great friends, wonderful food, laughs, tears, bonding, sharing, feeling The Spirit.
When I was called to be the quarterly HFPE leader, the date was set and there was a loose theme established (Fall Harvest Dinner), I just had to plan it! Our committee was somewhat bare bones this time around so it was me, the HFPE counselor, and 2 committee members. I got a couple additional sisters involved with food prep (making the bread and dessert) so that was good. We try to make the Christmas (or in this case fall) big quarterly activity a nice dinner, not a typical potluck. We want the sisters to come and enjoy, not feel obligated to bring a potluck item!
I felt strongly that our theme should revolve around gratitude and we used this talk by Elder Wirthlin as our jumping off point. My favorite quote from the article:
"Gratitude is a mark of a noble soul and a refined character. We like to be around those who are grateful. They tend to brighten all around them. They make others feel better about themselves. They tend to be more humble, more joyful, more likable. "
All sisters were asked to write a blessing they are thankful for, to sign their name, and hang the tag on our gratitude tree. Later on that night, I used those tags for a drawing and one lucky sister won the "Be Thankful" sign I had made. We are making the tags into a small scrapbooked gratitude journal to keep in our Bishop's office.
We had a quartet sing a beautiful arrangement by Marilyn Crandall (who used to be in our ward) of "Because I Have Been Given Much". It was a great transition from eating to our speakers.
We opened with my visual aid of a cornucopia filled with lemons...a Horn of Plenty...of problems! I used the analogy that we all have challenges and trials and problems and briefly spoke of the lemons being made into lemonade and had the lemons, juice, water, and sugar all ready to go to be mixed into lemonade as I was speaking. We can "brighten" those around us with our lemonade. Problems don't go away, we make the best of them. We then had 3 sisters speak to our theme on gratitude. We know that times are hard for a lot of people but wanted sisters to recognize what we DO have right now. We asked the 3 sisters to speak briefly about lessons of gratitude they have learned at their stage of life/motherhood/womanhood. Their talks were wonderful - the women did a fantastic job.
We had several sisters sign up to host tables with their own china/flatware/dishware, linens and centerpieces. It was great fun to see their creativity in how they dressed their tables - there was a lot of variety and all were lovely.
We had several of our amazing youth serve the sisters. They did a wonderful job, were dressed nice, were polite, and really helped make it an evening different than the normal so the ladies could sit and visit and enjoy a true night out.
We wanted to do make a fantastic dinner for the ladies so we planned a meal somewhat a step up from the typical church meal! Our menu:
A salad of organic mixed greens, cherry tomatoes, shaved Parmesan and a balsamic Italian vinaigrette.
Chicken Picatta/Marsala (kind of a combo recipe I created)
Roasted Red Potatoes
Mixed Vegetables with garlic, butter, and parsley
Italian Rosemary Bread (a knock-off of Macaroni Grill's bread)
Dessert: Pumpkin Roll (a sister volunteered to make it for everyone - it was yum!)
We had ladies start coming to the kitchen wondering if they could get foil or plastic wrap and paper plates so they could take their dinners home. They said it was too wonderful just to throw out so they wanted to take their leftovers home like at a restaurant. We were not prepared to have "doggie bags" for everyone! So, we found some ziplock baggies and passed those out. It was so funny.
It was a truly amazing night. I know the ladies had a wonderful time and felt "Enriched". This is the point, isn't it? Here are a few more pictures from the evening. They are kind of bad - I was not careful about focus. I just grabbed a couple quick pictures.
A great big thank you to Stacy, Jinger, Karen, Evon, Danna, Kristinia, Bev and Lori and all the ladies who hosted tables. It was lovely!
The chicken. Stacy M. purchased, stored, thawed, and trimmed all the chicken breasts. I dredged, browned, deglazed the pans and made the sauce and stacked in foil pans to take to the church to finish baking. I did the above about 4 times to do all the chicken.
Our wonderful music.
Sisters enjoying their evening.
Youth server in action
Me and Evon - she is the Enrichment Leader over midweek/evening activities Crummy picture of me. Oh well.
Getting dessert out to the masses.
Our Gratitude Tree and "Be Thankful" give-away sign.
The Pumpkin Patch
6 comments:
It looks beautiful! I'm glad it turned out well. I am curious to see what our ward puts together for a few weeks from now. It will be our first one since I've been in the ward (they've had a few small, very casual ones during the summer and since the ward re-alignment to "get to know you").
You did a beautiful job. I'm sure the sisters were blessed and left with their spirits lifted. The tables look lovely and the meal sounds delish.
There is nothing more important than having a grateful heart. We really have been blessed with so much.
This sounds like a MARVELOUS night. I would have loved to have been there. (And you look great in the picture!)
That turned out so beautifully! Looks like an amazing night. Everything looked perfect.
Our Ward did our HFPE on Gratitude hits month too and it was such a great experience.
Wow Meredith this is AWESOME! I'm sure that took so much work and was also enjoyed by so many. Good for you. Congrats on having it done!
I wish I could have come, I should have, it looked awesome. I lvoe the menu and that bread is seriously amazing! Thanks for the help with making my own Be Thankful sign!
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