Sunday, February 05, 2006

Personal Progress '89

Here's a little blast from my past as a Mormon teen. The boys got the "fun" of earning merit badges, so the girls needed some sort of award objects as well.

I remember getting a metal bracelet with oval-shaped indentations that I could earn gemstones for by setting goals in different areas. The gemstones were just colored plastic ovals that we got to stick to the bracelet's indentations with double-sided stickers. Later, the awards for setting and keeping goals were golden medallions with (relief) images of idealized young women on them to be worn as necklace pendants.

This little "improvement" I made to one of the pictures in my "Personal Progress" workbook as a teen illustrates a bit about what I thought of these lovely rewards:



Here's a picture of one of the awards that the teen me was mocking:



Thanks La for the above picture!!!

8 comments:

C. L. Hanson said...

You've never been in Young Women's have you?

If you had, you'd know that's no coincidence!!! ;-)

Anonymous said...

I love working on my Personal Progress. I love the Church as well. You should look up the new YW Recognition medallions, they're really pretty. And also, maybe YW was painful because you just didn't have good friends there. I've been there. For a while I went to a ward where the girls were pretty prideful and ignored me and looked down on me for being different from them. I didn't like it either. But now I'm in a new ward where the girls (and guys!!) are super nice and friendly and accepting. We hang out all the time.

C. L. Hanson said...

Hey Anonymous!!!

It's true that the particular batch of girls you get stuck with in your ward makes a big difference in how pleasant/unpleasant the YW experience can be (see Young Women's for example).

I'm glad you found a ward with some fun friends!

Anonymous said...

Personal Progress is design to help young women develop Christ like attributes, the medallions are not to be look as a fashion but as a sign that you are a young woman who knows that she is a child of God, a beloved daughter of our Heavenly Father, and of an infinite worth!!

Anonymous said...

Oddly, the jewelry has improved somewhat.

Eliza R. Snitch said...

Oddly enough, the jewelry has actually improved. Not that it's worth it now for the jewelry. It's still not.

Ladyfaire said...

Hey, I had one of those ugly bracelets, too! Of course, I was 10 so at the time I thought it was cool. What can I say, I was easy to please. So sad... I hadn't thought of that for a long while, so thanks for the nostalgia moment. Now, I think I'll go pierce my ears again. :) Oh, and buy some more flip flops.

C. L. Hanson said...

Hey Eliza!!!

I guess that's good news that they've improved the jewelry... ;)

Hey Ladyfaire!!!

Yeah, I have to admit, I thought the bracelet with the plastic gems (attached with double-sided stickers) were kind of fun. When I was twelve...