Combined Mutual Night

Tonight, my Beehives and I were in charge of the combined YM/YW activity at church.  One of my Beehives suggested doing an acting night...and that started the ball rolling.

I'm so grateful for inspiration!  

After wrestling with how to make this work well in our situation and with our time contraint, I figured out that the best way to do this was to 

Modernize Parables!

And thus...

Five Minute Theater was in production!

Our class president prepared these handouts 

for the YM and YW that were passed out last Sunday.

Everyone was asked to bring in a box of their favorite theater candy...

and their smart phone if they wanted to record the event "for posterity."

Setting up the candy buffet.

I got popcorn bags from The Dollar Tree for the popcorn and sweets!

A Beehive introduced the night...and read 

1 Nephi 19:23 And I did read many things unto them which were written in the books of Moses; but that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah; for I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning.

I reiterated the commandment that we are to liken the scriptures to our lives...

our lives now, in 2015. 

The youth got into groups and pulled a paper out of my hand to see what parable they would modernize.  I had more than enough of the parables printed off so that groups could call what they wanted or change out unwanted ones.  

After 15-20 minutes of brainstorming,

they scooped up  popcorn and candies...and 

sat back down to watch the 5 (or longer) Minute Theater productions!

Honestly, I detest taking pictures...I'd rather just enjoy the fun of what is happening around me.

But, our YW President was out of town and asked me to photodocument the evening. You get what you get and you don't throw a fit! haha

And the first skit, which was "Parable of the Sower" had the most kids in it...and I was videoing it...no still pix.  My son C* was in that skit...and took the videos of the rest so I could snap pix.

In between skits, this is what our boys do to stretch out!

The Prodigal...er...Daughter!!

The Good Samaritan...from Romeo...rescuing the injured one from...Rochester.  Here are the thugs from Rochester. The boys in the back are "trees."

The Parable of the Foolish Rich Man...done with a Monty Python Flare.

Yep...the little horde of deacons got the 10 Virgins...luck of the draw.

Here they twisted it to be the 10 Boy Scouts!

What an incredibly fun night!  All in all, we had well over 30 youth in attendance.

While I am still not used to leaders and youth talking through everyone else...

and I may never get used to that...

I am so very pleased by the energy and effort and excitement everyone put into their

modernizing of the parables.  As Neil A. Maxwell said:  “May we then do . . . what Nephi did when studying the scriptures, namely, to ‘liken all scriptures’ unto ourselves (1 Nephi 19:23). This is something that doesn’t happen often enough in the Church. We read the scriptures, but often we do not ‘liken’ them.”

I am so grateful for this calling to stretch my mind...to serve, to uplift and include, to stay busy and helpful...and become more intuned with the Spirit.  And grateful for that one Beehive who said "let's do acting."  

See where it ended!

Beehives are the BEST!!