On Sunday Beth’s Personal Progress leader came by to suggest ways in which the Young Women Personal Progress Achievement Award could be adapted for Beth, since she’s autistic. In particular, this earnest leader was suggesting that Beth could maybe earn the award by doing less.

Now the Young Woman Person Progress Award is a big deal for a Mormon girl. It is like the Eagle Scout Award for a boy scout. There are a lot of girls who approach their 19th birthday and realize there aren’t quite enough hours in the months or weeks remaining to do enough to complete the award.

As we talked about the “value experiences” and projects, it occurred to us that few of them were outside of Beth’s abilities. The main challenge would be keeping up a steady tempo of achievement, getting the experiences done.

The leader mentioned an idea of making a cake or some other treat each month to encourage the girls.

“Beth loves to cook. She could help with that…”

So each month the Personal Progress leader and Beth will make cupcakes for the girls who have finished one of the Value Experiences.

Since Beth also loves computers, I created a blog with all the Value Experiences and Projects needed to earn the Personal Progress Award, along with links to the online scriptures and documents when there are suggested readings.

I earned my Personal Progress Award almost 30 years ago, back when the program was brand new. I’m pretty sure they didn’t make me do everything, since it was a new program released when I was very close to leaving for college. Even if I had done everything, I have forgotten a thing or two in the intervening decades. So I look forward to doing these activities myself.

The blog is:

http://annandale-lds-yw.blogspot.com

Tags: Writing