Earlier in the year, our primary presidency held a primary activity based on a thought that President Monson had shared on giving Warm Fuzzies. Anyway, my husband(who happens to be extremely charismatic, and super fun) is THE go-to guy for everything in our ward. If there's a need for a Santa at the Christmas party, he's it. If an auctioneer is needed at the YW fundraiser, he's the man. So naturally, when the primary needed an appearance from the superhero "Super Warm Fuzzy", he was called to the rescue. :)
Anyway, I have been playing with the idea for awhile of having "Super Warm Fuzzy" pay a visit to our Primary music time. The kids have been working so hard on our program and in the past few weeks everything has really started to come together. It has made me feel a little warm and fuzzy myself.
At the start of music time, we talked a little bit about the different senses and how they are used: hands-we use to touch, eyes-we use to see, nose-to smell, etc. I asked them what we use our heart for. The kids of course said love but I also explained that we can "feel" with our heart as well-and described it as a warm, fuzzy feeling in our heart. I bore testimony that music invites the spirit. We can sing all day long, but unless we believe and have conviction of what we are singing, the message doesn't translate the same. We needed to make sure that we had that conviction before our primary program so that their parents and visitors would be able to feel the spirit through their music. It was their goal to make the congregation feel warm and fuzzy inside as well, which led me into the introduction of our visit from "Super Warm Fuzzy".
I explained that I'd run into "Super Warm Fuzzy" just the other day and that he'd asked about all of our primary children. I assured them that I'd told him how wonderfully they were doing with their preparation for the program. He asked if he could come for a visit on Sunday to see for himself. In preparation for his visit we needed to make sure we could make him feel warm and fuzzy with our singing.
To begin, I had two children come up and sit in two chairs. I put a "super warm fuzzy" cape on each of them (you wouldn't need to have these, it was just an added bonus as my kids kids had gotten from the primary activity earlier in the year). Then I blindfolded the two children. I asked them to listen to the children singing and focus on how it made them feel. They did a very good job with this and reported that they felt peaceful and warm inside.
After we'd polished the song, we were ready for our visit. "Super Warm Fuzzy" made his appearance. The Jr. Primary in particular was mesmerized with him and sang so powerfully. Definitely another warm fuzzy moment for me. He gave each of the children a little warm fuzzy that they could trade in after primary for a little treat-I just did a Hershey's hug because hugs make us feel warm and fuzzy too. :) I wanted to do the pop rocks because they make our mouth feel warm and fizzy but they were a little pricey. With our large group I decided that it was an unnecessary expense but if you had a small group, that could be fun.
Sr. Primary could tell that it was indeed my husband but they humored me and went along with it. This turned out to be such a success and I think it helped the kids to recognize the importance of "feeling" the music and the power contained therein.
Truly such a great group of kids-all 100+ of them. :)
