Banana Boats and Book of Mormon Stories (L&L #6)

• Tell a story from the Book of Mormon that teaches about faith in Jesus Christ. Share your testimony of the Savior.
~Learning and Living the Gospel #6

photo by thisweekfordinner.com

For this activity there were two goals.  Sharing a Book of Mormon Story and Sharing your testimony of the Savior.  I started by telling the story of Nephi building a ship, then we went around the circle and let the girls share stories.  For most of the girls it wasn't difficult to think of a Book of Mormon story.  Identifying how it teaches faith in Jesus Christ was a challenge for some, but we helped them and it all worked out well.  Sharing your testimony of the Savior is more challenging.  When put on the spot like that it can be frustrating to know what to say even if you feel like you do have a testimony, so I wanted to help the girls see that they did have testimonies and feel confident in sharing them.  I prepared for this activity by reading the October 2007 conference talk Knowing That We Know.  I explained to the girls my confidence that they all did have a testimony of the Savior, but that the "knowing that you know" takes time and effort, that their testimonies would keep growing.  Then I gave lots of examples on how I had learned about the Savior in my life through personal experiences such as an answer to prayer, healing, dealing with a death, love for family, etc.  Then I bore my testimony of the Savior.  This was really helpful to the girls and they were able to identify in their minds personal experiences that had strengthened their testimony of the Savior as well.  When we took turns sharing our testimonies of the savior they were able to share beautiful thoughts and it was a sweet experience.

For the activity we played Nephi and built boats, banana boats that is.  Instead of a campfire, we just warmed them up in the oven at 350 for about 15 minutes (experiment and see what works).  While they were getting all melty and warm, we used the leftover tin foil to make tin foil boats or other sculptures of the girl's choosing.  This was sooo simple, but the girls loved it and we had a hard time distracting them from it when it came time to to eat their banana boats and go home.  

Oh, bring a sharpie to write the girl's names on their banana boat tinfoils.  They all wanted the one they made, but after cooking they all looked the same to me and it was tough to tell...