The Liahona and the Bow

One morning Lehi woke up and walked out of his tent. He was suprised to see a strange looking metal ball on the ground. This strange present was from God. It was called a Liahona. The liahona had spindles (points on the top and bottom) and a pointer. A liahona is like a compass. The liahona was God's way of telling Lehi which way he wanted him and his family to travel and sometimes it even had words written on it. The liahona was great, but there was on trick! It only worked if Lehi and his family kept faith in God, if they didn't have faith or if they were being wicked, it didn't work.
Lehi's family followed where the liahona took them. In the wilderness, the only way to get food is to hunt and gather your own. Nehi and his brothers had bow and arrows to hunt for wild beasts. Laman and Lemuel's bow and arrows had lost their spring and Nephi's was the last one to work. Then it broke. Laman and Lemuel were very angry at Nephi because everyone was hungry. Nephi managed to make a new bow and arrow and then asked Lehi where he should hunt for food. Looking at the liahona, it directed Nephi up into the mountians. When in the mountians, Nephi found wild beasts and shot them with his bow. He brought the food back to his family and then thanked God for sending them food.

James (left) and Andrew (right) made wild beasts out of two handprints and a foot!

The boys went into the backyard and found a stick. I tied stretchy string to each side to make our own bow and arrows. We also have a plastic one I found at the Dollar Store for just $2 if that would work better for you.

We made Liahona Balls for a snack. We used the rice crispy recipe but used fruit loops instead and attatched gumdrops to toothpicks for the spindles.

I cut out a bunch of arrows and tapped them around the house. They boys went on a journey just like Lehi did when following the Liahona. They skipped a few because they saw what was up ahead. I made them go back and follow arrow by arrow in order and told them just because they saw ones further down the line didn't mean that was the right path.

This didn't turn out quite the way I planned...but I'll put it up anyways :) I paper machaed a balloon and painted it gold. I think it was enough to show the boys what the liahona kind of looked like.  Here's a link for a better example. http://www.maskeryandlund.com/liahona.html

This was a iron on transfer I found from a site I'll post below. My printer didn't print it off color and I didn't want to wait to post these so I just used fabric markers to color it in. Super easy and this will probably become a favorite jammie shirt. http://www.freeldsart.com/lehis-tent.htm