Mini Missionaries

This morning we had our quarterly activity for the Primary children in church. The theme was missionary work and it turned out to be a lot of fun!
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We started by sending each child a "mission call," like this one for my son, for one of 5 locations: Mexico, Japan, France, Russia, and Hawaii. They were invited to attend the "MTC" (Mission Training Center) at our church building and encouraged to bring their friends. They were so excited!

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As they arrived each child was issued a missionary name tag ("Elder Carter," "Sister Snow") and escorted to their "plane" (rows of chairs) heading for their assigned country.

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From there the children participated in a relay, Elders vs. Sisters (the girls won!). They had to run to a suitcase, unzip it, and dress in their missionary clothes before running to touch the flag of their country, and racing back to the suitcase to peel off the clothes, put them back in the case, and run back to tag the next person in line.

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The kids were so cute, racing back and forth in too-big shoes with jackets hanging halfway off, intent on winning the competition. They had so much fun they begged to do it again!

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After the relay, everyone attended the "MTC," where the 4 young missionaries serving in our area spoke to the children about sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with others.

They did role-playing activities and answered the kids' questions about what a full-time missionary's life is like.

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The children gasped when they learned the missionaries get up at 6:30 every day and spend 2 hours studying their scriptures!

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Next the kids went to their assigned missions.

Here we have a group listening to Brother Blake telling about life in Mexico.

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The presenters were people who either lived, worked, visited, or served a mission in the countries they taught about. They brought in native handicrafts, told stories, described the native people and their food and customs, and even taught a litle bit of the language of each land.

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Finally, all five groups gathered again to share some of what they learned and sing a missionary song (see the video clip below).

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Then came the yummy refreshments. Dylan was clearly enjoying his plate with foods representing each land: orange chicken, mini tacos, cream puffs, pineapple, and Russian orange tea cookies.
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As a Primary teacher (of the 3 year-old Sunbeams), Sarah attended the activity to help out. By the end of the activity, of course, she managed to get her hands on the Blakes' new baby girl. Sarah loves those babies!

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Here is a shot of our Primary presidency. Left to right: Wyndie is the president, Bridgette is the second counselor, Crystal is the first counselor, and I am the secretary.

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Working with these ladies can be a challenge, but I do the best I can. Just kidding! They are great women and I love helping them run the Primary. Our presidency meetings seem to last much longer than they should because we always have so much to share. We have a good time together!

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All in all, the children had a great time learning about other cultures and getting excited about missionary work.
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"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth..."

Romans 1:16