Monday, February 16, 2009

Sundays are crazy

I thought Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest.

Well, apparently they weren't talking about the Primary Presidency when they said that.

It was my turn for sharing time yesterday. The theme for the week was "The Priesthood Blesses Families". Normally I love teaching the senior primary kids and freeze up when I have to teach the jr. primary. There's such a variety in age and abilities in the jr. primary. Some can read, most can't. So it makes it harder to find activities that can be suitable for all. I also relate better to older kids who get my quirky remarks, lol. But yesterday it was the jr. primary that was my favorite.
I ok'd it with Jaeden first. We first talked about the Priesthood and what kind of blessings come from it. We talked about getting blessings when we are sick, about the blessing of the sacrament, and also blessings before starting school. I then shared the story with them about our family and how we wanted to add more children to it, but it just wasn't happening (I didn't share with them about having a miscarriage). But then a wonderful thing happened and we heard about a baby that was being put up for adoption (I also didn't mention how it was my sister-in-law's and how she didn't want the baby). I told them about us asking to be able to adopt her and how they said yes, they would love for us to adopt her because they knew we would give her a wonderful home with brothers and sisters and that we would love her very much.
I then told them about us taking Jaeden to the Salt Lake City Temple to have her sealed to us.
I asked them if they knew was being sealed meant and nobody had a comment. So I showed them two bags of raisins, one was opened and one was sealed and I asked them what would happen if I tipped them each upside down. Then explained that was like sealing our family, so that when we get to heaven Jaeden won't fall out of our family.
They then colored a picture of their Forever Family.
For the senior primary I started with an electric pencil sharpener, and tried to sharpen a pencil without it being plugged in. The kids pointed out what was wrong. Then we talked about the Priesthood and how it has to come from the proper power and authority.
Joel helped me with the next part. We went through his lineage of Priesthood, having a child come up to represent each person ordained back to Christ, so the kids see how it came directly from Christ, and the proper authority.
Then we played a tic-tac-toe game where they were divided into two groups and had to throw a bean bag at the tic-tac-toe game and pull off a paper with a scripture on it. They had to read the scripture and decide on what it says has to happen for a man to be worthy of the Priesthood. If they get it right they get to keep that square, if they get it wrong the other side gets to guess and try to win that square.
I left them with the Primary President at the start of the game to go see Jacob set apart as a Priest. It will be so awesome to see him bless the sacrament next week. :)
After that we had inservice that lasted until around 6:30. By the end of the day I was exhausted!

Saturday I had a newborn session for a baby born in our ward, she is so, so, so super sweet. I have to finish up a wedding before I can load her session into my program. So I need to work on that today.

3 comments:

Ginabear said...

Jen, I would sooo love to be in a class that you teach, any class, primary, RS, YW, any of them. Everytime you talk about lessons you have taught, I always wish I could have been there to hear the whole thing. I love your analogies and props you use. The raisins....awesome Jen!! Congrats to Jake on being ordained. Bring the tissues next week, you will need them!

Anonymous said...

Sounds like great sharing time ideas! :) I'm glad that you were able to have a good Sunday, even if it wasn't a day of rest! :)

Anonymous said...

Wow. That was a wonderful lesson.
It is so wonderful that your family can be sealed. I have never thought of raisins to teach that lesson!

Luv ya,
banana