This was a fun one!
After opening with a class prayer, we talked about what a tender mercy is. I recounted Pres. Eyring's experience of writing DAILY circumstances or things where he recognized Heavenly Father's hand in his life or around him that day.
I then asked the question, "What might prevent you from recognizing Heavenly Father's influence in your life?" Some of the answers were 'being over scheduled," "distractions," "pride," "being focused on yourself," and "attributing good things to luck."
We talked about how learning to recognize His influence could bless them now. Blessings included: being grateful/ happy, recognizing the good instead of focusing on the bad, humility. Then we talked about how it could bless them in the future and how these same blessings could snowball into a happier self and a happier life. I offered suggestions, but there was quite a bit of input from the kids of different scenarios of application.
I shared an experience of when I noticed Heavenly Father's hand in my life, then I invited the kids to share experiences or areas where they notice Heavenly Father's hand. One girl recounted when she lost an earring she had just received for her birthday. She lost it on the way to school, looked for it briefly, couldn't find it but didn't have time right then to search further. She looked again on her way home from school, still couldn't find it, so she prayed. She found it and recognized His hand. Another girl shared how her grandpa was really sick and that she could tell it was worrying her dad. Everyone was already praying for her grandpa, but she also prayed for her dad and she felt that he found peace to get through her grandpa getting sick. A new convert shared how he has seen Heavenly Father's hand in his family as they have found the gospel (he is super shy so it was extra AWESOME to hear his experience even though he didn't elaborate very much).
I gave them all three minutes to write as many things as they could in their journals where they could see Heavenly Father's hand in their lives and around them. Then we blew up a balloon and I had paper plate paddles (a paper plate with a large popsicle stick/ depression stick taped to it for a handle, and the outline of a hand on the paper plate representing Heavenly Father's hand). I counted off 1-2-1-2 through all the kids and all the ones were on the left, all the twos were on the right, chairs and bags were scooted to the edge of the wall and all the kids stood up in a line, shoulder to shoulder. We did a practice run where the balloon had to be kept up in the air by hitting it with the paddle and the paddle passed to the next teammate before the balloon dropped so the teammate could hit the balloon to keep it in the air. The real challenge was that when the game really started they had to do this same thing but call out one of the things on their list of where they have seen Heavenly Father's hand in their lives before they got to hit the balloon. If the balloon fell, if they repeated something that had already been said, or if they couldn't remember anything to say, the other team received a point. It was a low scoring game because they all did really well, but the kids enjoyed it.
I challenged them to write something down each day for the following week of things that were His doing that blessed them. It was a really fun lesson for everyone. Remembering our blessings always is.
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