YOUTH GOAL ACTIVITY. HARVESTING MY DESTINY GARDEN habit changer. Youth can learn that each thought can reap an action, habit, character, and destiny. Here they can: #1 Write three bad habits they wish to change. #2 Sow a good thought. Write a positive thought that will help change a bad habit. #3 Harvest your destiny garden. Write what each thought reaps.
Use for COME FOLLOW ME Young Women, Young Men, or Youth, Family Home Evening, Primary and Home, Seminary, Sunday School
LESSON LIFESAVER Activity:
Character Habits: Harvesting My Destiny Garden
OBJECTIVE: Help youth learn self-reliance skills. Learn that by planting three tiny seeds of thought, they can overcome three bad habits and reap a harvest of good habits that will determine her eternal destiny.
1. Write three bad habits you wish to change on the form, e.g., lazy, selfish, bad moods.
2. Sow a good thought. Below the bad habit, write a positive thought that will change the bad habit (e.g., if the habit is “laziness,” write “I like to work,” or if the habit is “selfishness,” write, “I will think of others,” or if the habit is “bad moods,” write, “I will think happy thoughts.”
3. Harvest your destiny garden. Write what each thought reaps (action, habit, character, and destiny).
TO MAKE print for each youth.
MUTUAL NIGHT, SEMINARY, OR FAMILY NIGHT ACTIVITIES
APPLE PIE POSITIVE SELF-TALK SEMINAR:
Be prepared to show youth an apple and a fresh apple pie (hopefully one that is warm fresh out of the oven). Tell the youth that it is easy to be just an apple, but with a little more effort we can be like an apple pie. As we know, we are all children of God; we have the desire to be better.
[Leader: You may want to demonstrate how to make an apple pie.] To make an apple pie we must add sugar and butter to make caramel syrup. We add the spices and a rich tasty crust. Self-mastery is like that. You can take yourself the way you are (show the apple) or we can add the things that make you even better than you are now (show the apple pie). Don’t be afraid to tell yourself that you are of great worth and value. Add spice to your life by strengthening your character.
List “Apple”ing Character Traits on the board.
Step 1: Have guest speakers come prepared to speak (see 3 below). Provide notepaper and pencils for youth with an apple and apple pie sticker.
Step 2: Ahead of time put up positive self-talk signs in the shapes of apples all over the room on the floor, ceiling, walls, table, light, and board.
Ideas: “You’re the apple of Heavenly Father’s eye.” “Bloom where you’re planted,” “Confidence is a gift you can give yourself,” “Practice releases pressure,” “If it is to be, it is up to me,” “Nothing is too good to be true, nothing is too good to last,” “Do your best and leave the rest,” “Count to 10 and then start over again,” “If at first you don’t succeed … try, try again.”
Step 3: Have a guest speaker tell how youth can make their life into “apple pie” quality through building their character. Ideas: (1) Describe good self-talk and bad self-talk. Talk about what positive self-talk can do. (2) Search the scriptures to find the right and wrong way to care for yourself, e.g., the Word of Wisdom, commandments like fasting, exercising, etc.
Step 4: Have youth list five self-talk messages they wish to take home and memorize. See Step 2 (above).
THOUGHT TREAT: Apple Pie. Review the Apple Pie Positive Self-Talk Seminar ideas that follow and serve a tasty apple pie.
SOURCE: YW2.40
THIS ACTIVITY CAN BE USED FOR Come Follow Me Lessons:
• MARCH Lesson 3 “How can repentance help me every day?”
• NOVEMBER Lesson 1 “What does it mean to be self-reliant?”
