Here's an activity we're really excited about. It's a variation on the Standards Night idea sent in by Michelle Birkinsha in May. Our activity will take place on November 14th so I'll let you know how it goes.

We're inviting the youth on an imaginary cruise aboard S.S. Cruise Lines (this of course, stands for Spiritual Survival). The youth will gather in the foyer and adult leaders will come to the foyer holding name cards for 4-5 youth at a time. The cards are like those you might see a limo or shuttle driver holding up at the airport to attract the attention of the person they're transporting. The youth will be led to the "ship" which will be a cardboard front on the stage. As the youth go up the walkway to the ship there will be adult leaders holding signs that read, "Bon Voyage" and tossing confetti, waving good-bye, etc. Lively music will be playing in the background.

Once onboard, the youth will be led through an emergency evacuation exercise by the First Mate. He will demonstrate how to properly secure the "life jackets" which will be cut from brown paper bags. After the demonstration, the Activities Director leads the passengers to the evening buffet (this will serve as refreshments) in the cultural hall. This will be a variety of cookies, brownies, etc. set up on the long tables. The youth will enjoy refreshments for about 10 minutes before the Activities Director invites them to join her in the ship's "parlor" (back on stage) for the evening's entertainment.

We have a man in our ward who plays guitar professionally and he'll be performing for about 5 minutes when the Captain halts the performance to announce that a terrible storm is fast approaching and his cowardly crew has abandoned the ship, taking all the life boats with them! The ship is taking on water and everyone must don life jackets and evacuate the ship immediately.

The youth are dismissed row by row and handed life jackets, each with a different colored dot on the front. They are instructed to "jump ship" and find the shipmates with the same colored dot as they must now work together to swim to a nearby deserted island and collect a variety of survival items as a team. There are a total of 13 survival items, each corresponding to one of the 13 standards found in the "For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet. One life jacket for each team will have a survival list taped inside. Though each team will search for the same items, they will all be numbered differently so that (hopefully) no two teams will be searching for the same item at the same time...though it's okay if that happens too.

The last clue will lead to the Relief Society room where a speaker from our stake will talk about how each of the items collected for physical survival has a direct correlation to the 13 standards found in "For the Strength of Youth." The importance of committing to following these standards as a means of surviving spiritually will be stressed.

At the conclusion of the speaker's presentation a closing song and prayer will be offered.  Well, that's the plan! Thanks, Michelle, for the great idea. We think this will be a fun twist.

Assignment List

Clues

Survival Items & Location