Sharing Time lesson: Service

For sharing time last Sunday we introduced a Primary "Giving Tree."  This Giving Tree is a follow-up to our lesson where we had the children write an act of service they did or draw a picture of a service they did as a birthday gift for President Monson (we saw that idea on Sugardoodle- thanks!).  To encourage our primary children to be service-minded all through the holiday season, and hopefully beyond, we came up with The Giving Tree.  The tree was simply painted on 2 large pieces of butcher paper taped together so that it's nice and wide as well as tall (from floor to ceiling).  The star is cut from cardstock.  I taped a garland to the tree and taped ornaments along the garland that read "Our Giving Tree."  This project is incredibly fast and easy if you use a 2" circle punch found in the scrapbook section at Michael's to make the ornaments!  I used scrapbook paper to punch LOTS of circles for the primary children to use for ornaments.  Before introducing the tree to the children, I began a lesson on service by sharing the following stories from President Monson's life....

• "The compassion and sensitivity developed in President Monson's boyhood continued to be a major part of his life when he was called to be a bishop at age 22. Bishop Monson's 67th Ward had more than 1,000 members, including 85 widows.Every Christmas the young bishop took a week of his personal vacation time to visit and bring a gift to each of the widows in his ward. He continued to visit these sisters at Christmas for the next 47 years until the last widow passed away in 1998." -"Called to Serve," New Era, May 2008, pp.2-5.
• Twenty-three-year-old Tom Monson, relatively new bishop of the Sixth-Seventh Ward in the Temple View Stake, was uncharacteristically restless as the stake priesthood leadership meeting progressed. He had the distinct impression that he should leave the meeting immediately and drive to the Veterans' Hospital high up on the Avenues of Salt Lake City. Before leaving home that night he had received a telephone call informing him that an older member of his ward was ill and had been admitted to the hospital for care. Could the bishop, the caller wondered, find a moment to go by the hospital sometime and give a blessing? The busy young leader explained that he was just on his way to a stake meeting but that he certainly would be pleased to go by the hospital as soon as the meeting was concluded.  Now the prompting was stronger than ever: "Leave the meeting and proceed to the hospital at once." But the stake president himself was speaking at the pulpit! It would be most discourteous to stand in the middle of the presiding officer's message, make one's way over an entire row of brethren, and then exit the building altogether. Painfully he waited out the final moments of the stake president's message, then bolted for the door even before the benediction had been pronounced.  Running the full length of the corridor on the fourth floor of the hospital, the young bishop saw a flurry of activity outside the designated room. A nurse stopped him and said, "Are you Bishop Monson?" "Yes," was the anxious reply. "I'm sorry," she said. "The patient was calling your name just before he passed away."  Fighting back the tears, Thomas S. Monson turned and walked back into the night. He vowed then and there that he would never again fail to act upon a prompting from the Lord. He would acknowledge the impressions of the Spirit when they came, and he would follow wherever they led him, ever to be "on the Lord's errand."  You cannot understand President Thomas S. Monson, First Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church, without understanding the repetition of such promptings in his life and the absolute loyalty with which he has kept that early promise to obey them. Indeed, his life seems something of a sacred manuscript upon which the Holy Ghost has written—and is still writing—one remarkable spiritual message after another." -Jeffrey R. Holland, "Pres. Thomas S. Monson: Man of Action, Man of Faith, Always 'on the Lord's Errand," Ensign, Feb. 1986, pg. 10.

Bear testimony of the principle of service after perhaps sharing an service-related experience of your own.  You can also intermix appropriate primary songs with the examples of "being on the Lord's errand" mentioned in the lesson.

I then introduced the Giving Tree.  The Giving Tree will be in our Primary room throughout December.  I provided ornaments for the children and they wrote recent acts of service they did (one per ornament), and then taped the ornament somewhere on the Giving Tree.  Some kids signed their ornaments and others are anonymous.  I told the children that every Sunday when they come to Primary they can write on more ornaments and add them to our tree.  By the end of the month we'll see how full and beautiful our Giving Tree looks!  If they hadn't written their note/drawn their picture of service to give to President Monson, they did that during this sharing time too.  

PS...If your primary hasn't done the letters to President Monson for his birthday yet, you can find what that is all about HERE and do this as a family.  Merry Christmas!