When Life Hands You Lemons...

Back in May I was put in as the head of the Relief Society activities. It was the end of May and our activities are the first Tuesday of the month, so I didn't have to worry about June's activity. We didn't have one in July, so this month was my first month to show the RS Presidency and the ward what I can do. I might have set the bar slightly high for myself. ;) Oops!

I went through tons and tons of ideas online (because, seriously, like I can come up with this on my own) and found a creative spin on the old "Lemons into lemonade" thing. There weren't many pictures, so I did have to figure out most of my own decorations.

I made about 55 of these for people to take at church on Sundays.

I made two of these and put them on either side of the chapel before church for three straight weeks before the activity.

I also made mini-versions of the posters (minus the cereal and fake lemons) that went up in the rooms around the church.

We had more than enough food, but that's always better than not enough!

As part of the night, we had three lemony mini-classes. The first one was how to make your own bath bombs taught by a woman in the ward who makes them all the time with her kids, so I knew she would do the best job since they're kind of complicated at first (she added lemon and lavender oil to keep with the theme of the night, plus it smells SO good).

The second class was all about using lemons in your beauty routine. It was really informative and the woman teaching is on my committee. She had been terrified to teach it, but she did a great job and said that she learned a lot.

The third class was all about household cleaning with lemons. This one was also taught my someone on my committee and she did great as well. Everyone in the neighborhood is going to have fresh, lemony smelling homes this week! haha

We made sure there were handouts in each class so the women could have the recipes and everything to take home, and the beauty class had a sample of a lemon face scrub to take home.

Lemon bath bombs!

This is Kasey, from my committee, teaching the lemon beauty class.

This is Kristi, also on my committee, teaching the household lemon uses class.

After everyone had a turn in each class, we went into the gym for a speaker. Now, the speaker had called five minutes before the activity started to say that she wouldn't be there because her step-dad was having a heart attack and they were going to the hospital to be with him.

Okay.....no problem?

The Relief Society President, Kristi (not the same one as above), knew the speaker and said that she would take care of everything. On the way to the hospital, the speaker still swung by and dropped off the items she had been planning on bringing to help Kristi out.

Long story short, this woman's family is missing a gene that fights cancer, so every one of her kids has had cancer (they said they get it like others get the common cold), and two have died from it (as well as her husband). She lost a 2 year old daughter a couple of years ago, her daughter had breast cancer when she was 12 (and had to have a mastectomy, but is in remission now), and in 2011 her then 12 year old son was diagnosed with cancer. 

This past February, her son used his Wish from Make-A-Wish to go to Farmington Station and hand out lemons. There was a news clip shown from the event and the son (who turned 15 at the beginning of February) was too sick to go out and hand out the lemons himself, so he sat in a nearby car while TONS of people helped out. There were t-shirts and lemons and it looked like a great day. 

Four days later, he died.

To honor him and his life motto, everyone at his school brought a lemon to school the day of his funeral. This wonderful kid had an amazing attitude all throughout his fight and never gave up. In 2012 he had to have his entire leg amputated, but instead of sitting home feeling sorry for himself, his family had every type of prosthetic made for him that they could so he could still go hunting and skiing and live his life.

It was a great way to wrap up the evening and more than one person was in tears. 

We had the treats afterwards and mingled for a while. 

 All in all, I think it was a successful activity! On to next month!