Primary President and Mini Missionaries

About 6 months ago I was called to be the Primary President. I had been serving as first councilor and our Primary President was called to serve in the Stake Primary Presidency. It was a calling I was willing to accept but also was afraid of!! To be responsible for the whole primary and all it entails is huge!! I have two wonderful, supportive councilors and a fabulous secretary, and this makes the calling easier. The Theme this year was Choose The Right. We have been putting gum balls in a jar through out the year for wearing of CTR rings three times a week and then later in the year for sharing their good choices. We wanted to do something fun and yet spiritual for our reward activity for filling the jar. We have just become a part of the new mission in Utah and we have been focusing quite a bit on member missionary work. We also will be teaching about missionaries during the month of November as our monthly theme. So we decided to call all our children on a mission. We sent them each a mission call assigned to the mission we live in. We wanted them to feel some responsibility for this mission and to take ownership of it. We set up the primary room as a MTC and had the YW and YM play district leaders. Our Bishop and his wife were the mission president couple. We opened with prayer, gave each of the children a name tag and sang a opening hymn. I welcomed them to our primary MTC and introduced a sister who taught them a little Spanish. Then we had 2 guest speakers who talked about their missions. One sister spoke who served in the Philippines and then Berrett spoke about his mission to California. We then placed 1 of 3 colored dots on each child and divided them into districts. We moved to the gym and had 3 relays going on. I was assigned the scripture chase tic tac toe. I had 9 pictures of scripture stories, and 9 references on slips of paper. They chose a scripture reference, looked it up, described it to their non reader companions and then chose the picture that matched. then they could place their x or o on the white board and race back to look up the next reference. It worked out well as I didn't want it to be a winner/loser game. I wanted them all to know that when you read the scriptures you are all winners. LUCKILY the X's and the Os's were all able to get 3 across and so I reminded them again that we are all winners when we read the scriptures. Then they moved onto the next relay. My 1st councilor had set up 2 suitcases and 2 poster boards with pictures of items to be packed. All the items were on tables along with a few items you would NOT take on a mission. They had to race to the picture, choose something, race back to the table pick it up and race back to the suitcase to pack it. Then my 2nd councilor had them fold a blanket neatly, dress in missionary attire and then run to set a table with 2 place settings. Then they had to undress again!! Anytime a group finished before the others, they would go to where the bishop was and play "president says"(Simon says). After all 3 districts finished the relays we went back to the primary room and the YW had them write letters to the missionaries who were out from our ward. My 1st councilor had set up a mailbox and decorated it with "missionary mail" the kids got such a kick out of coloring pictures or writing letters to the missionaries and then mailing them. We then had a speaker talk about his mission to France and then the Elders assigned to our ward spoke to the children about how they can be missionaries now. I gave the children a 21 day challenge hand out to share with their families. They were asked to prayerfully select either non members or inactive members to pray for. They write them on the hand out and pray for them night and morning. They read a scripture a day from the 21 day list and they are promised to see mighty changes. All of my children accepted the challenge. the bishop made a few closing remarks and then released them. We gave them their "blessings" which were candy lei's and then sent them to the gym for pizza and dessert!! It was a great activity!!