'On Our Way' — Church History Museum helps Primary children seek truth, have courage and take action on path back to Savior
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Exploring the outdoors, sharing campfire stories and treasure hunting are all regular summer activities for adventurous youth. This summer, the Church History Museum will help Primary children experience these common activities in an uncommon place.
The 2010 edition of Primary activity days at the Church History Museum began June 7 with a group of nearly 20 children from the Sagecrest Ward, Sandy Utah Central Stake. The museum blends existing exhibits with fast-paced activities to help children internalize this summer's theme: "On Our Way: Walking the Path to Our Savior."
Church history educator Angela Ames said she expects more than 3,000 children from more than 100 wards and branches to participate in the activities, which run through Aug. 14.
"Our goal really is to bring in the very young Primary-aged children and give them a really good experience with the museum," Sister Ames said. "That way, at a young age, they're interacting with Church history in a way that's fun and exciting and makes them want to come back and learn more when they're older."
This is the first year that the museum has offered activity days every day the museum is open. In previous years, they were held only on Mondays. Sister Ames said that while this year's reservations are all filled, she hopes the added availability will allow more nearby Primaries to participate in years to come.
"We have some of the same repeat Primaries come every single year," she said. "We'd really like to get Primaries here that haven't been before and haven't had the opportunity."
Having activities every day means a bit more work for museum docents like Linda Sandberg, but she said the benefits for both children and volunteers are worth it.
"Having it so that Primaries can come different days of the week makes it so much nicer for them and makes it so that we don't get burned out or overwhelmed," said Sister Sandberg, who is in her fourth year of museum activity days.
As the children make their way through the museum, about 250 volunteers help children develop three habits to get "on their way": seek truth, have courage and take action.
Seek truth
After seeing exploratory tools used by pioneers, including Brigham Young's spyglass, the children receive their own spyglass, guidebook and compass to discover other artifacts nearby.
Each artifact represents a different way children can find the truths of the gospel. For example, one group was led to an old church bell, which represents the importance of attending Primary in order to seek and learn truth.
Have courage
Next, children don pioneer clothing and gather around a "campfire" located on the stage of the museum's theater. In between pioneer songs and dancing, they hear stories of pioneer children who acted courageously in the face of danger on the trail.
Seven-year-old Ryan Peterson was chosen from the group to represent Henry Hinman, a young pioneer who prayed for his camp to be protected from a herd of stampeding buffalo. Ryan said he felt the Spirit while playing the part.
"I learned you can pray for protection when you're about to get hurt," Ryan said.
Take action
In the final station, children are given a map to find "treasure": a replica piece of the magic square discovered by President David O. McKay on his mission to Scotland that read, "Whate'er thou art, act well thy part."
Each of the nine boxes that make up the magic square bears a picture of a Latter-day prophet and an item that reflects actions taken by that prophet. The box with President Gordon B. Hinckley's picture, for example, contains a microphone. This represents his desire to tell the world about the gospel. The children then commit to "tell the world" themselves.
The tour ends with volunteers inviting each Primary to compile a list of good deeds done over the summer and send it back to the museum. Sister Ames said the museum wants to create a display based on the responses.
Hailie Stokes, who came to the museum with her mother, said she knows how to take action when her family completes their move to San Antonio, Texas, later this month.
"I'm going to stand up for what I believe in," Hailie said.
Hailie's mother, Allison, said that she hopes parents and children who go to activity days at the museum will better understand what can be done each day to bring the Spirit into their lives and homes.
"I think one of the things the kids definitely learned today was that the key points in life are making the right choices every single day to get back home to our Heavenly Father," she said. "We as parents need to make opportunities for our kids to feel the Spirit every day."
