My church calling right now is to teach the 13 year olds' Sunday School class. I love it. I have a great group of kids...16 if they all come, so most of the time we have a full class, and takes a lot of planning to keep them all engaged and interested.
A few weeks ago, the topic I chose to teach about was how the adversary uses deception to hurt us or make us stray...and how we can use the guidance of the Spirit to help us see through his tactics and stay close to Heavenly Father.
Once in a while, I have a stroke of creative inspiration come to my mind and come up with a fun opening activity to introduce the lesson...this has got to be one of my favorites so far. It was really...potent...and the point was made very clear.
I brought this lovely caramel "apple" to class, and had it sitting on my table as the class came in. It was noticed immediately...and I could tell that several of the boys really wanted it. It was hard to keep a straight face. The kids were asking me which one of them got to have it...so I explained how much care I had taken to make this caramel apple just perfect, putting sprinkles on it, and milk chocolate...and then the bow to make the presentation beautiful. The whole class wanted some, so I suggested that we cut it into pieces to share, and invited one of the kids to come up to make the first slice.
I didn't get a picture of it...but as we sliced into this lovely concoction...it wasn't a big juicy apple that was inside...it was a big stinky, juicy RED ONION. Crazy...but no one wanted it after that!?! The looks on their faces was priceless! They were wrinkling their noses because it immediately smelled horrible! We then had a good discussion about how Satan will disguise things and use all manner of deception so we have to always be on our guard and rely on the Spirit to see the true nature of things.
The onion kept stinking...even after I put it into a ziplock bag. Ick. Gross. It truly was a great illustration of how Satan can make some things seem so appealing and good and beautiful, but really they're just a gross, stinky, foul tasting mess that is hard to wash away. We had some great laughs about it all.
But don't worry...I was nice...
I also brought these yummy caramel apple suckers for them to enjoy.
I may have traumatized some of them though...I brought brownies this past Sunday...and had several ask if I had put any ONIONS into them, and I've had one boy pray that we won't get food poisoning from the refreshments. I LOVE it! I have the best Sunday School class in the ward.
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