Wise Choices and Cookies

So what do wise choices and cookies have in common?

Well, I taught the lesson in Young Women's on Sunday, which was about Wise Choices. I found this really great object lesson on Sugardoodle. As soon as I read it, I remembered one of the leaders when I was a young woman teaching something similar and knew I had to teach it to the girls!


A recipe for cookies {above} is handed out to the girls and they are told that we will be making cookies in class today. The only catch is that I don't really want to follow the recipe, because I'm pretty sure I know what I'm doing and that I can make the cookies just perfect without it.

So, ingredients such as pepper instead of salt, eggs with the shells, syrup instead of sugar, and cornmeal instead of oatmeal are added into the mix. It turns out yucky and completely not the right consistency for a dough. {The girls were totally grossed out by this, but also completely entertained and attentive}

This is just like life and our ability to choose. The Lord has given us a recipe to follow (commandments, etc.) and in order for us to achieve our desired result of eternal life and happiness (or edible cookies), we must follow that recipe exactly.

We talk more about agency and how each one of us has the power to choose for ourselves, what we want to do each and every day. With each choice there are consequences, when we make the right choice, we get good consequences in the form of blessings. When we make the wrong choice, we get bad consequences resulting in unhappiness.

We also talked about the Atonement and how, when we make wrong choices, we have the ability to repent and become clean through the Savior. We are not alone, we are not left here to fend for ourselves. We have the help and guidance of our leaders, good friends, the Holy Ghost, and the Savior's perfect example.

Each of the girls received edible cookies :) and two recipes. One for the cookies and also "God's Recipe for Happiness", which I've included below. It was a little reminder of the basic things that Heavenly Father asks of us in exchange for his guarantee to return to Him.