My Body Is A Temple

Out of all of the temples in the world, which is your favorite?

Washington, D.C. Temple

Timpanogos Temple (American Fork, UT)

From the East Coast to the West Coast, and all around the world, the temples of God look very different, but they are nonetheless stunning and beautiful. Out of all of the temples in the world, which temple is Heavenly Father's favorite? (I had one girl tell me Salt Lake City haha). The real answer, however, is yours. Your temple is Heavenly Father's favorite. He loves it so much that He sent His son to die for it. 

This is how I began our lesson and activity to teach our activity day girls that their temples are the most important. I'd set out 10 different temples for the girls to look at as we had our little discussion. If the girls have never heard that their bodies are temples, read 1 Cor. 6:19-20. I then hung another photo of a temple on the board that I found from kugalls.blogspot.co.uk:

I had the girls read the quote on the photo from Thomas S. Monson and then I reread it changing a few of the words so that they could see how the physical temples of God and our temples of flesh and bone are the same. "Your temple is more than flesh and bone.  You are filled with faith and fasting. You are built of trials and testimonies. You are sanctified (or saved) by sacrifice and service." We talked about how if our bodies are temples, then we should be taking the best care of them as possible. 

I had three girls prepare how to share how they keep one of the following three items:

1. Healthy Body (Exercise, Sleep, Playing Outside)
2. Healthy Mind (Doing Math, Reading, Reading Books)
3. Healthy Spirit (Reading the Scriptures, Going to Church, etc).

For our particular class, it was pretty energized and hard to teach all the aspects of this lesson so if you have an energetic class, I'd suggest either teaching about the temple or talking about keeping your body, mind, and spirit healthy and going into a little more depth on them. After the lesson, I had the whole class follow me outside for our activity...

A RELAY RACE!

The girls were all pretty stoked to get to do the relay race. We only had three segments, but they loved it and it was perfect timing! 

1. 4-legged race. The girls had been broken up into three teams of three so we had a four-legged race. I mapped out a course on a hill next to the church and had the girls run it as best they could and back. Very simple leg of the race to put together. Items needed: Cloth strips to wrap around their ankles
   
2. Egg walk. I forgot my eggs at home so we ended up using small pom pom balls, which I think made this leg of the race more challenging. The teams lined up at point A, each with a spoon between their lips. When I said "Go", the first member of each team started walking the course (touching pieces of tape high and low at certain occasions), spoon between their lips and the pom pom ball bouncing on the spoon. When the girls dropped the pom pom, we just let them pick it back up and put it back on their spoon. When they reached point B, they had to turn around and retrace their steps to pass the pom pom off to the next member of their team.
   
3. From the starting point of the last leg of the race, the girls all had to crab walk to the next section and line up single file in their teams. One member from each team would pick up their teams ball and try to shoot it into a bucket placed about 6 feet away from them on the ground. The first team member had to make the shot before the ball could be passed off to the next team member. Once all three team members had made the shot, they all had to run to the next point and do 10 jumping jacks, 10 push ups, and 10 crunchies. 

After we finished the race, we ate sliced Watermelon, which was a perfect treat for the hot day outside. When the girls had finished eating, they asked if we could do more relay races so we made some up on the spot to have them go do. It was a great way to focus on the "fitness" part of taking care of our bodies and to let them run off some of their energy!

Do you have any relay race idea winners? I'd love to hear about them in the comments below!!

Kim