Soap and Repentance

"I will choose the right. I know I can repent when I make a mistake."
~My Gospel Standards

For this activity the lesson was on repentance from the My Gospel Standards section of Faith in God.  The leader had brought some markers.  She had the girls think about things that we might need to repent for.  For each suggestion she made an ugly mark on her arm with a marker, all different colors and sizes of marks.  Then she talked about repentance, Jesus Christ, and the atonement.  Then she used a bar of ivory soap to wash her arm clean. 

For the activity the girls got to do soap carvings.  We brought a bunch of kitchen knives, potato peelers, nut picks, and nails for the girls to carve with.  (the potato peelers were some of the most popular, wish we had had more).  We did this activity outside and had the girls carve their shavings onto paper plates since it is quite a messy activity.  The girls really enjoyed this although the carving was harder than they expected it would be.  I think the girls that carved two dimensional scenes or messages had better luck than those that tried to make 3D objects based on the time allotment, but it was really fun either way.  We had tons of extra soap and all the girls begged to take the extras home so they could do more carvings.