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Souper Bowl
by: Cami in Mesa, AZ
We called it a "Souper Bowl"
and invited the sisters to wear sports t-shirts or other attire. We
also assigned everyone to bring an ingredient for our soup, kind of
like Stone Soup, where everyone contributes something. We used a
Minestrone Soup recipe, and just assigned ingredients based on the
first letter of everyone's last name, so we had at least 3-4 sisters
assigned to each ingredient.
As the sisters arrived, we had a table set up for them to put
their soup ingredients -- a big pot for the veggies, a bowl for the
pasta, a colander for the canned beans. We had four round tables
with different colored tablecloths (red, green, blue, yellow) on
them, and we let the sisters sit wherever they wanted.
Then we had
our short lesson on being united as a ward. After that, we handed
out name tags with a colored sticker on each one. The ladies wrote
their names, and then were instructed to go sit at the table that
corresponded with the color on their name tag. We had a few
protests over that, but it's good to mix things up a little!
Anyway, each "team" was given some poster-making supplies, and we
gave them about 15 minutes to make a team banner, and to write a
team song to an assigned tune (each table was assigned a different
tune, like Row, Row, Row Your Boat, or Twinkle Twinkle, etc.). Then
each team showed their banner and performed their song -- it was
quite hilarious!
Then we had some relay races. For the first one, each team sat
in a circle. They were given a pair of gardening gloves and a piece
of bubble gum for each team member. They had to take turns putting
on the gloves, unwrapping the gum, chewing it, and blowing a bubble,
and then passing the gloves to the next person. It was a riot! For
the second relay, team members paired up and had to hold a balloon
sandwiched between both of their heads while they ran down to the
end of the cultural hall and back. For the third one, each person
had stand a baseball bat on end on the floor, lean over and put
their forehead on the end of the bat, and run around the bat four
times without taking their forehead off. Then, they had to dribble
a basketball down the court and shoot a basket. This was hard! It
was funny watching everyone stagger around like drunks, though.
Their was so much cheering and laughing, it was great.
After the games, we all sat back down and served the soup.
There were a few ingredients missing, because the assigned sisters
weren't there, but that was part of the plan. While they ate, our
EL read the book "Stone Soup" and then talked about how important we
all are to the success of the ward, and how we need each sister.
She said that if we think our ward is friendly, we will find
evidence to support that theory; and conversely, if we think it's
not a friendly ward, we will find evidence to support that -- it all
depends on our attitude. She challenged the sisters to reach out to
those who were missing and invite them to come next time. It was a
nice message. We closed with a sister singing the song "We're
Sisters" from Women of Destiny Vol. 2. It was a perfect closing.
After the closing prayer, everyone sat around and chatted for almost
an hour (which is always a good sign!). It was a really fun night.
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