Part Two of my Sunday Lesson

I showed you part of my lesson from Sunday about the value of work and the Little Red Hen, and this is the other part now. I had to teach two lessons combined, and the other part of the lesson was, "Using Time Wisely." I was supposed to use a jar, some biggish rocks and smaller pebbles or soil in the jar and just do it and show them. I thought that was a good idea, but I wanted to make it better. I wanted it to be "hands on" for all the girls, and I wanted it to taste good!

This is what I came up with: M&M's, chocolate chips, marshmallows, and rice krispie treats. I kept my containers of treats hidden under my jacket for the first part of the lesson so the plain bread would still be appealing. Haha! They got really excited when I revealed this part of the lesson because they thought they already got their snack for the day. (I make something to munch on for every lesson I teach.)


I gave the girls all the ingredients and told them to figure out how to make them fit in the container. The big colorful balls (rice krispie treats made with fruity pebbles) are supposed to represent things like reading scriptures, saying prayers, going to church...etc. The other little things are other parts of life like going to school, playing sports, doing chores and homework, hanging out with friends, playing video games...etc. And of course, the container is supposed to represent your day or life in general.

What they found was that if you tried to put all the little things in first, there's not room in the end to make prayer and scripture study fit in your day. But if you plan your day by first deciding that that you will do those things and when, then everything else just falls into place. I've noticed that when I do that, everything else either falls into or out of my life. The important things work out and the unimportant things go away and are forgotten. If there were too many of M&M's and they fell out of the container, you might say that means you've spent too much time texting your friends or checking out facebook and those things will fall out of your life when you put the important things first.

I think the girls liked that object lesson...especially since it tasted so good!

Happy 3rd Anniversary!

These are the greatest containers. What makes them so great is that they all match!


Greg's been complaining about our old containers because he can never figure out which lid goes to which container. So I got some new ones that were cheap and flimsy and somehow I got two packages of slightly different ones, so then I couldn't even tell the difference either! It's so annoying to push the lid on and it not fit. So on Wednesday while I studied for my chem final (it was 7-10pm on our anniversary) Greg went out and got these new containers! They are a bit more sturdy than the other kind too. My favorite are these two little ones that I like to use for treats. That's like the "Bennett snack" that we always got as kids and still love.


Greg thinks they're cool because they click together like this. (I'm not really sure when that would actually be useful though.)


After my chemistry test Wednesday night Greg surprised me with a new plant! It's pretty English Ivy that has been growing around a wire stand so it has a nice shape.

On Thursday we celebrated our anniversary for reals. We went to Spokane to Christmas shop, go out to dinner, and do some work in the temple. It was nice to spend time wandering around the mall without having to rush or worry about getting home in time to study. Dinner was really good too. We went to Boston's The Gourmet Pizza.


I got penne pasta with creamy tomato sauce, chicken, and broccoli. It was delicious! They baked it with mozzarella cheese on top, and it was like pizza--only better! Greg got a ravioli kind of dinner with their special tomato basil sauce. Our waiter was really great too. He was nice (not pushy/annoying) and did things like bring us more bread sticks before we asked for them.

Then we went to the temple. It was beautiful. I always love doing work in the temple because I just feel happy and so much love for the people I'm serving and working with.



After the temple, we went to Dairy Queen and got some treats for the ride home. Overall, it was a great date!

Ha! Ha!

That's kind of what I'm doing this year. I just put up lights in one window and that's the extent of our Christmas decorations this year. It just seemed like something I could cut out to lower my stress levels while I'm in school. Maybe next year I'll do better.

The Little Red Hen

My lesson on Sunday for the young women was titled, "The Value of Work." Hmmm, does that sound like a fun lesson to have right before Christmas? Or any time for that matter? I imagined my girls all looking bored out of their minds or like they were getting a horrible lecture. So I tried to think of a way to make it more fun.

The first few questions in the manual are, "How would your life be different if your parents weren't willing to do any work in your behalf?" and "What do you think the church would be like today if the early members weren't willing to do any work?" That made me think of this story I heard when I was a kid. I don't know if mom has the book or if it was at the library....Anyway, I checked it out at the library and started my lesson by reading it to the girls. I think they liked it a lot.


The little red hen found some wheat berries when she was searching for food. Somebody told her what they were and that you can bake bread with the wheat. The whole book shows step-by-step all the work she had to do to make the bread. And for each step the little hen says, "Who will help me plant the wheat?" or "Who will help me harvest the wheat?" etc...and each time the animals all say, "Not I!" because they're a bunch of lazy bums.


So the little red hen does it all herself, and her baby chicks help a little too.


Finally the little red hen bakes her bread! All the animals smell how good it is and want to "help" her eat it. And she says, "No! You didn't help me before so you can't have any now."


And then the bread comes out of the oven and the little red hen and her chicks enjoy it. "Oh joy of joys!" And I shared my bread with the girls too even though they didn't plant the wheat or grind it or bake the bread. Hahhaa!


It was fun though, because I had just baked the bread right before church so it would be fresh and hot. I put it in our classroom about 15 minutes before the lesson, so by the time we got in the room it smelled really good like fresh bread!
That was a fun lesson!

Pretty Surprise

We went to visit Summer for Thanksgiving and were gone for about a week. Right before we left I ran around the house and watered all the plants. I noticed some pretty pink flower buds had appeared on this cactus. I was a little surprised and didn't know what to expect.


This is what I found when we got home.


Really big pretty tropical-looking flowers! Cool!