I cannot take credit for these great pictures. April joined our team as our photographer and did an awesome job taking these pictures! I was thankful to not have to worry about taking pictures that night!
We had recently moved back to Utah and consequently into a new ward. Our neighbors moved in around the same time we did. They both had callings and so did Seth, but I on the other hand was craving for something to pour my heart, soul, and time into. One, cold November day in 2008, that opportunity came in the mail in a letter address from BYU. I opened it to find an opportunity to serve as a Service Project Leader at the 2009 BYU Women’s Conference.
Two months later, in January 2009, the meetings, planning, stress, excitement, and spiritual experiences began. I was put in charge of the service project ‘Crowns and Wands’ which would take place during the Evening of Service. The first step was to choose an assistant. I, of course, chose my mom. I am thankful for her assistance during the very long stressful process! Crowns and Wands was a brand new project that had never been done before. This brought new, atypical, excited, and stressful events along with our responsibilities. All service projects for that evening were based off of past service projects. Because this one was brand new, we had to clear our own path in our service project jungle.
After I had an assistant, the next step was to design the Crowns and Wands from scratch. I went off a few crowns and wands that the WC (Women’s Conference) committee had purchased and created my own. This was not that hard part. The hard part was writing down step by step how I did it and how much materials would be needed when the women created them at WC.
Once I had the crowns and wands designed, we had to do our homework and shop around for the least expensive place to purchase the supplies which, was not an easy!!! I created a spreadsheet with multiple equations to help us figure out how many crowns and wands we could complete taking into account time, space and allotted room for women in our booth, budget, etc. Once the plans had been approved, the orders were put in.
Once our materials arrived, I planned evenings with groups of women to prepare the packets of prepped supplies so that at the Evening of Service, the women could come in and get to work. Everything had to be pre counted, pre cut, pre measured, pre everything.
I also spend time laying out my service space for that evening and how the project would flow. At each station, the women would be ready and waiting to do their specialized step. But as the even got closer, we realized we need crowns and wands started so that all the different steps could begin at that same time. We need crowns started but stopped at step two, we needed wands started and stopped at step six (etc. etc. etc.). Then again, another evening of gathering women began. We were so very thankful for the help because we (my mom and I) couldn’t have gotten it all done without it!
From the beginning I was working on the most difficult part of the whole project, organizing a team for the big Evening of Service. This proved to be most difficult because I am not one to ask for help. I do things myself or die trying. Well this was not even an option with this project. I needed a team to help organize and keep our service area flowing. I didn’t have a lot of people to ask and the people I did, either couldn’t make it or didn’t share the same love for service as I do. This issue caused a lot of tears and sleepless nights. At the last minute, my awesome sister in law Amy came to the rescue and emailed tons of people she knew, that I was in need of some help and that is how our team came to be. Only 9 out of the 25 women on our team did I know personally! And 6 out of the 25 came from out of state. I cannot even begin to tell you how thankful I am to these women! Oh the stress that was lifted off my shoulders once I had my team organized and in place. It brings tears to my eyes just at the thought of this miracle.
The next step was to create step by step instructions, inclusive with pictures, to tape on the tables so that women would have the instructions to know step by step what they needed to do to create the crowns and wands.
Then we had to box every last thing we would need for that evening and send it off to be waiting for us at BYU. Even this task of boxing the materials up came with intense planning, labeling, and stress! But thankfully, our night started out smooth because we had this all organized. Set up was a breeze which I am thankful for because I only had two other people helping me!
Throughout the whole project I felt as if Satan was doing everything to set us back and not let this project happen. But, equally strong, if not stronger, I felt Heavenly Father fighting hard for this project to soar with flying colors and allow us to bless the lives of so many sick little girls.
Largest miracle of the whole project took place that night during our Evening of Service. I was stressed that the project I had created was too time consuming and tedious for most women to be able to sit down and create these crowns and wands. Our goal was to get 96 Crowns and 96 Wands done. We had the supplies and used our budget to the max but would we have enough space in our booth to have enough women there helping us get these done in the allotted time?!?! I think this was the most uttered prayer by everyone on the service committee, Please help the Crowns and Wands service project go successfully, that the women participating will be able to accomplish the difficult tasks and in a timely manner. I was coached that even if we only got 5 or 10 or 15 crowns and wands completed, those will bless lives and we can use the supplies next year. We were fully prepared not to meet our goal. But Heavenly Father had a different plan. He provided a way. He was in charge. Without him I, we, and this project would have been nothing. Our project was the FIRST done that evening. We had a line the WHOLE night with women waiting to get their hands helping on these beautiful crowns and wands. We had to TURN AWAY many because we just didn’t have enough work to keep the willing hands working. After we exhausted our supplies we had created 93 crowns and 96 wands. I couldn’t help but tear up as I reported our success to the WC service committee.
