ACTIVITIES: 1 and 2
Use for Family Home Evening, Primary Sharing Time, Young Women or Youth, Activity Days*
ACTIVITY#1: Choosing a Consequence (Spin-the-Bottle) Game
Objective: Before playing the game, explain what agency is and what it means to be responsible for your choices. Discuss how making good choices has helped you develop greater faith. Explain that Heavenly Father loves us and wants us to make good choices and receive the blessings of those choices.
To Make: (1) Print, color, and cut out the Choosing a Consequence Spin-the-Bottle Game label, wordstrips, and signs. (2) Glue the label and game rules on a bottle with a lid. (3) Fill the bottle with the “smile” and “frown” wordstrips. Close the lid. (4) See details on label to set up and play the game using the “Immediate Consequence,” “Future Consequence,” and “Eternal Consequence.” signs.
To Set Up Game: Tape to the floor or table in the center of a circle the “Immediate Consequence,” “Future Consequence,” and “Eternal Consequence” signs.
To Play: Have players sit around in a circle. Teams take turns having a player spin the bottle in the center inside the signs. The bottle neck should point to one of the signs. If neck is on the border of the signs, choose the sign to the right of the bottle neck. Player pulls out a “smile” or “frown” wordstrip and reads it aloud. Player names the consequence for that action that matches the type of consequence for where the bottle neck is pointing. Example: the “Immediate Consequence” for “Stay up late” is you are tired the next day. Collect the smiles. When the bottle is empty, the team with the most “smiles” wins.
ACTIVITY#2: “Choose the Right” Song and Straight and Narrow Path Discussion
Objective: Learn to sing “Choose the Right” (Hymns, no. 239). DOWNLOAD THE “CHOOSE THE RIGHT” SONG VISUALS to teach youth the song (see Sharing Time Activity shown).
• After singing “Choose the Right,” talk to youth about how when we make right choices the Holy Ghost guides and protects us. When we make right choices we are not left alone when we need help the most; the Spirit is always there. By praying and choosing “right” over “wrong” we can easily follow the Spirit and stay on the straight and narrow path that leads back to heaven.
• Tell the story and show the video of Sharon G. Larson: Second Counselor, Young Women General Presidency, in General Conference (Ensign, Oct. 2013 “Your Light in the Wilderness”). She tells how as a young girl, her father taught her how to drive the tractor and plow a straight line in the fields before planting. If she did not, the weeds would grow where she went off the straight and narrow path. To plow straight she should keep her eye focused on the fence post across the field – letting that be her goal, she could plow a straight line. He dad told her to pay attention always, comparing this to the temptations of the world that could throw us off course.
• Sister Larson says in her talk, “The Lord knows that you face challenges and temptations, and He provides the light that brightens your hearts, your minds, and your spirits. He has said that His word is truth and truth is light and light is the Spirit of Jesus Christ (see D&C 84:45).”
USE FOR PRIMARY SHARING TIME
OTHER USES FOR THE ABOVE ACTIVITY:
*ACTIVITY DAYS (Girls ages 8-11 to achieve specific goals): See I Will Make Good Choices – Activity Days, Learning and Living the Gospel – Goal 9
MUTUAL NIGHT ACTIVITY:
THOUGHT TREAT: PayDay Candy Bars. Give each youth a PayDay candy bar (or bar with a similar message) and tell them that the choices they make now will determine how much pay they receive now will determine how much pay they receive in blessings today, tomorrow, and eternally. BARS AVAILABLE in local grocery stores or Amazon.com.
