Scripture Charades

At Will's recommendation, we had tentatively planned to go bowling tonight for Family Home Evening, but since Joel stayed home from school with a bad cold today, we figured bowling was not the best activity. Instead, we played scripture charades. We began by singing Book of Mormon Stories and then everyone was given 5 minutes to come up with actions and props for two scripture stories. We then took turns acting out our stories. At the end of each charade, everyone wrote down their guess as to what the story was. When all ten acts were completed we totaled up the guesses to see who did the best at guessing.

Will acted out David and Goliath using a realistic sling from Bethany and then the Book of Mormon story of Ammon cutting off the arms (with a plastic sword--but he also considered using a light saber) of the sheep rustlers.

Joel acted out the story of Alma the Younger being struck down by an angel for three days and then waking up and going on a mission. His prop was a hand printed missionary name tag: Elder Joel Emmett, Zarahemla mission. His second story was also about Ammon fighting off the sheep thieves only with a different sword.

Our thespian Sarah acted out the story of Esther. She alternately played the roles of the king (with a crown) and Esther (with a shawl) and even wicked Haman who was put to death by throat slitting in the end. For some reason I thought she was acting out Salome dancing for king Herod followed by the beheading of John the Baptist. Her second story was King Benjamin climbing a pretend tower to deliver his famous sermon.

Marie acted out Samuel the Lamanite preaching from the city wall (the coffee table) and then the wicked folks of the city shooting arrows (she used a bow as a prop) and throwing stones (using foam balls that were gathered up at the end of the SLC winter Olympics closing ceremony) at him. Her second story was Daniel in the Lions den complete with a very sweet and not-hungry-at-all stuffed lion. Will happily figured out both of these stories.

I acted out the story of Jericho. I marched around the room seven times. On the seventh time around I pulled out my bugle and blew the walls down. The final story was that of Peter's vision of the unclean foods from Acts. I pretended to sleep and then in my dream a dish cloth filled with a stuffed Piglet and a stuffed red lobster (unclean foods to Jews) came down from heaven. I then pretended to be Peter preaching the word of God to gentile Cornelius in Caesarea. It was a fun evening. Everyone had a great time. Chocolate chip chewies (with nuts!) for the treat.