Personal Progress: Faith #6

For this activity, I walked the girls through the Plan of Salvation, reading scriptures and discussing each part.  We started in the premortal life where there was a war.  (My original plan was to have the girls cut out pictures from church magazines and make a poster representing the Plan of Salvation, but I didn't have the room or the resources.  So I had a bunch of old church magazines with no use, so I cut out pictures to decorate each station.)

Then we went through the door of birth,

 and to earth.

We talked about the creation, the fall, and the atonement.  We discussed various pictures that related to earth life.  Then we went through the door of death.

We went to the Spirit World, where our work continues and the Gospel is preached to those who haven't yet accepted it.

Then we went to judgment and resurrection, a door that is not possible without the Atonement of Christ.

We ended up in the Kingdoms of Glory. 

The front of the room was bright and the rear was dark. 

In the front (Celestial Kingdom), there were color pictures of temples and pictures of Christ.  In the middle (Terrestrial Kingdom), there were black and white pictures of temples. 

In the back, there were silhouettes and reflections of the temple. 

At the very back was Outer Darkness.

Afterward, I gave them a diagram of the Plan of Salvation and instructions to go explain it to someone else to pass off.

Throughout the activity, I handed out candy for various things: bringing scriptures, sitting on the front row, helping people, finding scriptures first.  At the end, I discussed how not everyone got the same amount.  In the end, we don't all end up in one generic heaven.  We go where we deserve to go--we get what we earn.

Hindsight advice: When it's this late in the year, it's too dark and cold to have "earth" outside. 

October 2010

Because of the special issue of the Ensign, our Relief Society presidency chose to have October's message be President Monson's Relief Society Conference talk on not judging.  I had anticipated a message relating to temples and was going to get a little ghost of some kind with a note about how there are spirits on the other side waiting for you to do their work.  When I saw what our message was, I thought about a "don't be a witch" gift, but figured that might not go over well.  And then it hit me--Windex!

“Why beholdest thou what you think is dirty laundry at your neighbor’s house but considerest not the soiled window in your own house?”

–Pres. Monson

Personal Progress: Virtue

There really aren't a lot of ways to make Virtue requirements into an activity.  Since this is the only value where the project is dictated, I decided to focus on that and have a Book of Mormon party.  It was a costume party--we were to come dressed as a Book of Mormon character or thing.  (I was the tree of life, complete with fruit to exceed all whiteness.)

The girls were divided into 3 teams: Nephites (led by Nephi), Jaredites (led by Mahonri Moriancumer), and Anti-Nephi-Lehies (led by Ammon).  They rotated through a few activities.

First we started with 116 Post-It notes spread around the church that they had to go find and bring back.  They took forever, didn't manage to get them organized to see how many were still lost, and weren't very cooperative.  And I completely forgot to explain the relevance.

After we all explained our costumes and Nephi, Mahonri, and Ammon explained who they were and who their tribes were, we split into teams to go through the activities.

In one room, the girls learned about Nephi's boat and the Jaredite boats.  Then they had to build their own boats out of paper plates, plastic utensils, and tape.

In another room, the girls learned about Lehi's vision and went through an obstacle course by following an "iron rod" through the "mists of darkness."

In another room, they learned the importance of scriptures and had a scripture chase.  There was a Joseph Smith Translation exercise too (a message that I "translated" by changing the font to Webdings), but I didn't get time to get copies made.

At the end, we gathered in the kitchen and they used frosting to decorate Liahona cookies.  I was quite frazzled by then and had trouble getting them settled enough to explain what the Liahona was.  I closed by explaining that the scriptures are kind of like a Liahona for us and we need to be reading the Book of Mormon.  I passed out Book of Mormon reading charts as they left.