Two Relief Society Birthday Celebrations

MY ward had a Relief Society birthday celebration about the 19th of March.  It was just a very fun evening of food and fun.  We have quite a number of new, young families and couples in our ward, so it was great to have "getting-to-know-you" games.  We had taco salad, fruits platter, and ate the pretty cupcake centerpieces for dessert.  (Connie Weaver Donohue[?] made the pretty centerpieces. She used to live in our ward and caters now!)

We were assigned a color of table to sit at, determined by the color of name tag we put on when we arrived.  Then, part way through the meal, we were instructed to get up, take our plate and move to the table number on the BACK of our name tag, so we mostly had a whole new group of people to visit with.

Of course, I didn't think to take any photos while there, but the table decorations were cute and spring-y.  There were getting-to-know-you questions written on the paper on the table, as part of the centerpiece.  "Would you ever consider sky-diving or base jumping?"  "Where were you raised?"  "Tell about your first kiss"  Just a good variety of fun stuff.  Favorite books, oh, the list went on and on and we didn't have enough time to share everything and find out everything about everyone that we wanted! 

After that, we had a bingo game with more of those similar things. We got to find people who had done things them like "Lived in a foreign country"  "Been visit taught this month"  "Wearing Red"  "Served a Mission"  "Eaten sushi"  "Likes artichokes"  "Done their visiting teaching this month" "Read scriptures today"

And of course, there were a few fun prizes for the first few "Bingo's" and the first couple of black out bingo's.

THEN

My mother-in-law invited me to attend her ward Relief Society birthday celebration Thursday night of this week (March 27) with her.  It was a combination of the 19th ward, the Indian Hills Ward and the Greens Lake Ward--the three wards who meet in the Greens Lake chapel.  I went with her and figured I might see a few people I knew since we have lived in the 19th ward over the years.  . .Many, MANY years ago when we lived in Mike's parent's home.

Those women worked really hard and presented a very tradition Jewish wedding feast dinner, simplified and Americanized.  It was plenty of food and lots of fun.  They had a good turn out from all the wards and filled their little cultural hall.  We had time to visit with sisters around us.  Then they treated us to a really well-done presentation of the Parable of the Ten Virgins, a musical presentation written by Emily Freeman.  Beautiful music, beautiful costumes and voices and setting.  And I had a front-row seat.  It was really nice. I've never really noticed it before, but these newer little-er LDS chapels don't have a stage in their cultural hall! Hmm.  So it was good to have a front row seat. 

It did last a long time, but I'm very glad I went, as I have not seen a production of that before. I understand it is out of print now, but the ladies who presented it did a fine job. I could tell they had ALL worked very hard on the decorations, the food and the presentation.

Happy Birthday Relief Society!