Sharing Time- We can choose the right.

this month i've been teaching primary at church.

our topic has been Agency... choosing the right.
Religious or not religious EVERYONE teaches their kids about choosing good.
here are some ideas i used-- (note- they are not all my ideas, just my adaptations.)

The Stick--

i made a choice and consequence stick--

i loved using it to discuss scripture stories, real-life examples and what if stories.

you can't make a choice without getting the consequence.

Joshua 24:15

the kids all memorized

"choose ye this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

we talked about being a part of a house-- a church house, a home and even the house of Israel.

how important it is that we stick together and choose the right.

Captivity and Misery or Liberty and Joy (2 Nephi 2:27)

we talked about how good choices lead to freedom and joy, and how bad choices lead to misery and captivity.

it was SO interesting for me to think about how our choices lead to captivity or liberty.

i loved trying to find a picture of liberty-- i finally came up with a butterfly flying out of someone's hands.

isn't that cool?  don't you think good choices help you feel free?!

choices are a gift!

-drawing a rainbow.
i had two kids come up.  i asked them to draw me a rainbow on a piece of paper.
i gave one kid (the younger one) a whole bag of crayons.
i gave the other kids one white crayon.
it was funny watching them draw and hearing the kids respond.
we are SO blessed to have MANY choices in life.

God Gave us CHOICES.
we talked about how choices are a way that we can show God what we believe.
-spelling test.
i said i was going to give them a multiple choice test.
i asked how do you spell SMILE?
then i wrote on the board a) SMILE

i asked, who thinks the answer is A.

i told them all how smart they all were and they laughed.
they told me why they needed more choices to prove that they knew how to spell it.
exactly.

we talked about the fact that we ALWAYS have agency.
-Sitting down.
i asked a kid to sit in a chair at the front of the room.
we talked about the choices that he had.
then i tied him to the chair with a big rope and asked, "So now, did i take away his agency?"

the kids came up with the many choices he still had.

-i showed a WHIP.
we talked about Nazi Germany.
how the Nazi's took people from their homes, killed their families, stole their money, starved them, forced them to work, took their clothes, shaved their heads and even changed their name to a number.
i asked if the prisoners had any choices?
then we talked about Victor Frankl in Man's Search for Meaning.
I LOVE THIS MAN and the great lesson he has taught about man's innate gift- the ability to choose.
i read part of this quote.
Victor Frankl—

We can answer these questions from experience as well as on principle. The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.

Seen from this point of view, the mental reactions of the inmates of a concentration camp must seem more to us than the mere expression of certain physical and sociological conditions. Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him - mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp

we ALWAYS have a choice.
-i talked about BILL CLINTON (oh yes i did)
how in college he was in a circle where they were passing around drugs and he put the joint to his lips but didn't inhale.
i asked the kids what choice he had in that situation.

i promised them that someday they would THINK they had no choice.

but that would be wrong.

we can ALWAYS choose the right. 

-Groan or Grow... BOW or BOAT.

i showed a kid's bow.

in the book of mormon there is a story about a family who is asked to leave Jerusalem and travel to the promised land (America). 1 Nephi 16
while in the Jerusalem wilderness they encounter many trials.
one of which is that the only metal bow they have to hunt for food BREAKS and they are starving.
two of the brothers choose to grumble and complain against God.
Nephi, the righteous example, prays and asks for help.  He tries to build a bow out of wood.  He is blessed to get food for his family.

after reading that story i asked the kids why God would let such a bad thing happen to Nephi.
he was doing what was right.
didn't God love Nephi?
as we were talking i realized that Nephi's metal bow COULD NOT have lasted forever.
they were travelling to a new land, they NEEDED to learn to make tools so they could hunt and feed their families.
Nephi's bow breaking was God's way of helping him learn to build greater things.
A few chapters later, Nephi needs to build a BOAT that they travel in across the ocean.
Nephi needed to learn to build a BOW because God knew he needed to build a BOAT.
even if you don't believe in the Book of Mormon-- there is great truth in this story.
so often God lets us have little failures in life so that we can develop skills that we will need later in life. 
when hard times come we have a CHOICE.
GROW or GROAN.
it's not about the BOW it's about the BOAT. 

don't you love teaching lessons because you learn so much?
i love thinking about these things... and i love learning as i teach.
agency is a good thing.