SHARP TONGUE ACTIVITY

We had a really great activity a couple of weeks ago I thought I would share. We had noticed that a lot of the girls spend a lot of time talking about other people and saying things that were exactly very nice. So we did this:

We called it "Be a Star Thrower" We didn't tell them what we had planned except that they would learn to be a Star Thrower. We decorated with Stars and had star cookies at the end

We met all together at the beginning and read some of the book about Being Someone special. ( I can't remember the author. My counselor has the book) it is the one about the Wimmets and how they put dots all over each other. We put dots on the girls

Then we went into another room we called the Sharp Shooters where we talked about how talking bad was bashing. We used the conference talk by Elder Marvin Ashton from May 1992 called "The tongue can be a sharp sword". Then we gave then slips of paper that had really really bad comments on them like: You're fat, or your hair is greasy or you're a geek, things that they say to each other. We gave them each one. We had a poster up that had everyone's name on it. When they said their comment they had to say it really mean and then throw the dart at the poster. Sometimes it hit one of the girls names and sometimes it hit the white space on the poster. They thought that just because it hit the poster they were OK. But we explained that their words were like the dart and once you let go there was no taking it back. And some one could hear it and it would eventually get back to the person you were bashing. When every one in the room had a turn we remove the poster and there was a picture of Christ under it now with holes in it. The room was silence and some of the girls started to cry. Then we talked about how bashing stops their spiritual growth. And how the spirit wouldn't be with them if they were bashing and how happy it makes Satan happy when we do it.

We then sent them to the War Zone which was another room. There we learn how words were like bricks. We made bricks from sponges and threw a few of them. Then we taught them how to put on the whole armor of God to protect ourselves from these bricks. Sometimes we even throw bricks at ourselves. We had a shield and cardboard armor to make our point. We talked about how the world was a war zone and how we needed to be close to the scriptures and the Lord to help us through this war.

We then sent them to the warm fuzzy room. In there they each got cards and were able to write a warm fuzzy to each other we then put them in envelopes and passed them out to each of the Girls. We then read the end of the Wimmets story about how one didn't' have any dots on her and how she was able not to believe what people said about her and the dots wouldn't stick to her.

Then we read the Star Thrower Story and tied it in to the rest of the evening. It is also from elder Ashton Conference talk and unfortunately at this moment I can't find my copy of the story, but it was from a conference address also, but not the one that I quoted
at the beginning.

It was a wonderful evening. We were really afraid of how the girls would react. But we heard from parents and girls alike saying how we must have been talking to them and how much it made them think and how they liked the evening! We felt it was a road to helping them watch there tongues. I hope this makes sense to everyone.
Rhonda in Oroville CA