Candy Bars and Dominoes

Two weeks ago I taught a lesson on Encouraging Family Unity. I had a lot of fun in preparing this lesson. I found a couple object lessons on http://www.sugardoodle.net/ that I wanted to comment about. If you haven't heard of the above website and you teach lessons, then you'll love this website. It is for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) to share ideas in preparing lessons. There are great stories, object lessons, handouts, etc. on there. You too can submit ideas for others to use. This isn't just for Young Women leaders.

Back to the object lessons. The first object lesson we did was with 2 boxes of candy on opposite sides of the room. Two girls were tied up back to back with rope and were told they had 10 seconds to get their candy. I had bought big boxes of Mike and Ikes and Hot Tamales so that the prize seemed more exciting than a candy bar. I thought this could go one of two ways. They did exactly what most would do and that helped the object lesson work its magic. Both girls tried to reach their candy and THAT was all that mattered. Now, if you are a parent of one of my girls, please forgive me for this object lesson and what ended up happening. I promise I will never use it again...on a Sunday. I will now attempt to describe it, though words will never do it justice. When I tell this story it makes me laugh so hard that I have tears streaming down my face. Just typing it makes me laugh out loud. Though it wasn't recorded on a camera, it will forever be recorded in my mind. I started to count, "1...2...3...4", the girls are pulling and pulling and pulling. The first girl had her candy within 3 or 4 seconds. THAT is precisely when it started to go wrong (funny, but wrong). The first girl still kept pulling so that the second girl COULDN'T get her candy too. They both were fighting so hard to pull the other to their side of the room. I kept counting, "5...6...7", as the struggle went on. (Now keep in mind, this is how the object lesson was suppose to be going.) The second girl fought a good fight as she started to pull the first girl to her side, "8...9", moments before I said "10", the second girl grabbed her candy. THIS was the moment that it REALLY went wrong. As this unfolded before my eyes, there was no time to react. What was to follow only took 2, maybe 2 1/2 seconds. The second girl, upon hearing "10" and obtaining her prize, stopped pulling. Unfortunately the first girl did not. Can you figure out what happened next? Remember, they are tied back to back with rope. The second girl fumbles backwards as the first girl tries to stop what is happening. They fly across the room (only about 4-5 feet, our rooms are small, but the wall was right there). As the second girl falls, she takes the first girl with her, there is no choice, they are tied together. They both fall to the ground, safe and VERY lady-like I might add. At that moment, the door opens and one of the other Miamaid's mom opens the door and looks at me. I said, "This isn't what it looks like". She said, "Maybe I should come in here, it looks like fun." I of course apologized to not only the mother, but the girls. I'm sure my apology didn't sound very genuine at the time, through laughter and tears, but it was. I vow not to attempt that again with girls in dresses. Who would have though both young women would land with their legs bent and knees together, with their skirts situated as if they'd sat down on purpose?! Neither was hurt and I'm sure it will be an object lesson they will always remember, I surely will. Of course after we untied them and they were safely in their seats, sharing their candy with the other girls, we talked about how this may would have looked had they had unity and worked together so each could obtain their goal. (It would have been much different, but wouldn't have made much for a blog posting now would it.) Much like in this life we should work together, with our family and friends, to help each other obtain the ultimate prize by obtaining Exaltation.

The second had to do with dominoes. How when we are in a bad mood that there can be, they piped in "a domino effect". How we should be unified with our families and choose to have that bad mood stop with us. This was not nearly as funny, but the fact that the girls finished my comments before I could assured me they got it.

I really liked both object lessons. However, Nevaeh was a fan of the second. When they came over after church, she saw the domino box on the table and made a tower...and then got to watch as it fell over.