You are Special

We did a wonderful activity that came from the list (Credit to MaryAnn from Texas and Alice). We took the book "You are special" by Max Lucado and created an activity to go with it. There s nothing quite like having 40 minutes of fun and laughter with the girls, followed by 15 minutes of applying a principle to that fun. This is also a wonderful FHE activity. (The book itself is worth owning for our children)

When the girls arrived, we played a game, similar to musical chairs, whereby everyone sits in a circle and one person stands in the center. The objective is for the person standing to get a chair. She has to make a statement of something she has done, something she is wearing, or somewhere she has been. Anyone sitting on a chair who has done the same thing has to exchange chairs with someone else, For example, "I can recite one of the articles of Faith" or "I have been to Utah". Anyone who has done that, has to make a run for it to try an get a chair vacated by someone else. One girl will be left standing and then she has to make another statement.

The best part: After each turn we (the leaders) stuck stickers on each of the girls. (Sometimes we stuck stickers because they moved, sometimes because they didn’t move). We had four different color stickers and we made the girls think that the sticker color was important by discussing amongst ourselves,  Do you think that was a red or a yellow, Sister XYZ". The girls ended up covered with stickers from forehead to shoes and they were all very busy trying to guess which color stickers were good or bad. They really had a great time together, and with us. We haven t laughed this much together in quite a while.

Then we analyzed who had the most and least of each color sticker and we asked the girls who had a lot of red stickers, how they would feel if we told them that the red stickers represented poor choices etc.

We asked them how it felt that their leaders had judged them and labeled them because of their actions.

Then we read the book "You Are Special" by Max Lucado. It is a story about a man named Eli who made puppets. All that the puppets do all day is put stickers on each other. There were two types of stickers, stars and gray dots. Stars were given to the puppets who had smooth wood or were talented. Gray dots were given to those who could do little. Punchinello was ashamed because all he ever got was gray dots. One day he meets Lucia and finds out why she has no stickers at all. He learned that she visits her maker every day and that the reason why the stickers don't stick to her is because they don't matter to her. What really matters is what her maker thinks of her. The book ends with Punchinello saying, " How can I be special, why do I matter to you" Eli looks at Punchinello and puts his hands on his shoulders and speaks very slowly, "because you are Mine, that's why you matter to me. This is exactly how Heavenly Father feels about each of us. He would love to put his hands on our shoulders and look us in the eye and remind us of His love for us, simply because we are His. The story ends by Eli telling Punichello to visit him every day. As Punichello visits Eli the stickers start to fall off.

We had the discussion that is listed below. But perhaps the best part came a week later when I heard one YW saying to another "She just gave you a gray dot. Are you going to let it stick" and the other girl add "No I m just going to let it fall off me!" We have decided in our ward that that is our unwritten theme for the year, we are going to constantly remind each other not to let the stickers stick. (And that goes for leaders too).