Let's talk about dating....

Hello everyone...sorry for the delay...everything seems to be working just fine now...what a crazy weekend it has been. So I am finally posting some of lesson 35 from the YW Manual 3 handouts that I used for my lesson (still working on one...road signs are giving me a lil trouble but hopefully that will be up soon). 

To being my lesson I brought in some cookies for an object lesson. Now these were not just any cookies. They were my favorite recipe for chocolate chip cookies. This recipe makes a huge amount of cookies (like 12 dozen depending on size) so I took a about a 1/4 of the dough and I added half a bottle of curry...followed by half a bottle of cumin, then, not to be out done, I added 1/4 to a 1/2 cup of salt. Yes, I intentionally meant to do this!  Of course I then added some chocolate/white chips to it. 

 Don't these cookies look YUMMY?!? Guess again...it was a good thing I had some glasses and water near by. The looks that my fellow leaders and the girls had were priceless!!! I have been dubbed mean and am no longer trusted with food in my lessons (see the peanut lesson on consecration and sacrifice.. 28 i think).

These cookies were made into an analogy of dating...some guys look good on the outside but on the inside..they are not so great or there are a lot of "cookies" in the world...some good and some bad....which one do you hope to find?

So for some things that I used for my lesson, I used a picture that was circulating a lot on the net lately and came from sugardoodle with the saying "if this ain't your castle...you ain't my prince" and of course the castle being the temple.

Another resource I used was the mormon messages for youth "Chastity: what are the limits?"  For handouts I used a road map (which is the one I hope to have up soon), a talk given by a former bishop in our area (Click HERE for word doc.) and then I gave them a bag with a good cookie that had a treat topper with the saying what kind of cookie do you want?

Click HERE for pdf-4 to a sheet

"13th Night"

As promised from the short little blurb that I wrote last night from my phone, I am posting the details of last nights mutual activity.

The theme for the night was Being in the World but Not of the World or simply known as the "13th Night." 

We started out with the girls all repeating this years mutual theme, the 13th Article of Faith. Our idea for the nights activity was on the last words of "if there is anything virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things" and Elder Oaks talk on Pornography (which can be found HERE).

We had our stake president come in and talk to the girls, he is also a professional counselor and has had experience in the effects that pornography causes, plus our girls really responded well to him when he talked at girls camp. 

We had the girls and leaders sit in a circle so it was a little more intimate and so the girls would feel comfortable asking questions or making comments. Our stake president started off with some points that he liked in Elder Oaks talk and then proceeded with some current statistics which are and were quite alarming....for example if we took all the money that is spent on pornography we we could fix the national debt with in weeks. Considering there is about $180,000,000.00 spent in 60 minutes on the filth. Scary isn't it? He also mentioned that one in seven females get solicited. Even scarier!! 

He also brought up some great stories from the scriptures to drive his point. He used the story of David and Bathsheba (how thoughts turn into actions and so forth) and then he talked about Joseph and Potifer's wife (sorry if I spelled those name wrongs) and how Joseph knew what was wrong and how he made a commitment to avoid the temptations. 

We talked a little from our discussions how thoughts and being modest affect the young men that our young women associate with.  How being strong and committed to doing what is right can help them if they found themselves in a situation that would compromise their virtue when on dates or what not. The girls made a lot of great points and it made it for a great night to address some concerns and issues that our youth are being forced to deal with in the world that they live in. 

Integrity-Making a Case for Morality

This week for mutual, the girls learned about the value INTEGRITY. So to help with the lesson, we took out a book that was compiled for FHE based on the President Gordon B. Hinckley's book Standing for Something: Ten Neglected Virtues that will heal our hearts and homes. Here was the basic lesson plan of the night: (there is a link at the bottom of this post if you want a copy of the lesson)

Making a Case for Morality

(FHE based on the YW value of Integrity)

STORY:

            Many years ago President Hinckley worked in a Denver railroad office where he was in charge of the baggage and express traffic carried in passenger trains. One day he received a telephone call from another railroad in New Jersey who said that a passenger train had arrived without its baggage car. Three hundred passengers were angry because they had no luggage.

            They discovered that the train had left California and travelled to Utah and then to Denver and St. Louis with not problems. However, in St. Louis a switchman had mistakenly moved a piece of steel just three inches. That piece do steel was a switch point and the baggage car that should have been in New Jersey was in Louisiana, fourteen hundred miles away.

           

This lesson is similar to the workings of a heave farm gate. Such a gate moves very little at the hinges, but a long way out at the circumference. A very small movement at the hinge brings long movement at the end of the gate.

So it is with our lives. A careless poor decision can wreak havoc with consequences that reach farther than you could ever imagine.

We must stay away from that which leads to:

            1. Unclean thoughts

            2. Unclean language

            3. Harmful behavior

DISCUSSION:

            We can choose heroes and heroines with high standards to look up to-men and women of tremendous physical and moral courage.

President Hinckley has had several heroes to emulate throughout his life. They include:

            George Washington

            Thomas Jefferson

            Abraham Lincoln

            Charles Lindbergh-who flew over the Atlantic in a single-engine Spirit of St. Louis, landing 33 hours later.

            Admiral Richard E. Byrd- who commanded an expedition to the South Pole.

            Stephen Hopkins- an ancestor of President Hinckley who was a passenger on the Mayflower.

Think of men and women you know who are examples of moral courage to serve as your heroes.

What are some things in our lives that could have a harmful influence on us?

            Magazines, internet, Movies, Music, Television.

           

“It is native to believe that a steady diet of blatant immorality played out nightly in our living rooms has no effect on people. I am always curious when individuals insist that what they watch on television or in the movie theaters doesn’t affect them. It was interesting to note that the going rate for a 30 second advertising spot in the 1999 Super Bowl was 1.5 million dollars. Apparently a host of advertisers felt confident that in 30 seconds time they could influence their viewers to buy the products or services they were peddling. Are we really to believe that hours, leading to years, of television viewing will not affect attitudes about everything from family life to appropriate sexual relations?”  -President Hinckley

GAME:

            “What’s on your mind?”

PURPOSE:  To illustrate the importance of putting good things in our minds so the world does not fill it for us. Point out how easily our minds fill up with information when we see it regularly. Explain that if we just watch TV, that is what will fill our minds. More importantly, we need to fill out minds with scriptures, good books, games, and movies, so that our minds are not filled with the unpleasant.  

Read a phrase from the Commercial Slogans and see if they can identify the products:

“Yo quiero”………………………………………………………………………………………………..Taco Bell

“Like a rock”………………………………………………………………………………………….Chevy Truck

“Give us a week, we’ll take off the weight”…………………………………………………….Slim Fast

“Got milk?”………………………………………………………………………………………..Dairy Industry

“Just do it”……………………………………………………………………………………………………….Nike

“Melts in your mouth, not in your hands”………………………………………………..M&M Candy

“It’s your store”………………………………………………………………………………… …….Albertsons

“Always low prices”……………………………………………………………………………………..Walmart

“We love to see you smile”………………………………………………………………………..McDonalds

“The pain killer most recommended by hospitals”…………………………………………...Tylenol

“Mm Mm Good”……………………………………………………………………………...Campbell’s Soup

“What’s on your list today”……………………………………………………………………….Fred Meyer

 Click HERE for Word Doc download of lesson