For fun

Occasionally we have family home evening with my parents via ichat. It's a fun way to stay connected with them. We did an activity that took a couple of weeks, but was quite interesting. The experiment was to put a cup of rice into 3 different containers. My parents used mason jars, and we used plastic cups with plastic wrap over them. Once the rice is in the jars, we wrote on them. On one, you are supposed to write Good, happy things. On another, you are supposed to write negative, sad, bad things. The other jar is supposed to just be blank (it's the control one). We then put the containers in different dark cupboards throughout the house for a week or two (we put them in ones that get used a lot), and talked to them whenever we opened the cupboards (it's best if they can't hear each other). We said nice things to the good one, mean, angry things to the bad one, and nothing to the neutral one. After a week, Brandon and I checked ours. The control cup of rice had some mold on top. The "good" rice only had a tiny bit of mold, and the "bad" rice had a lot of mold!

The point of the experiment was to demonstrate how positive and negative thoughts and words can actually physically effect us and others. We felt kind of funny talking to cups of rice, but it was really cool to see the results (actually I made Brandon take a picture so I wouldn't have to look directly at the mold. I can't stand the stuff :)). My mom has a friend who did this experiment, and her jars of rice showed an even bigger difference. The positive one looked like you could eat it, and the negative one turned into a liquid. But it was a good lesson on how the things that we think and say really do make a big difference to ourselves and others! Yesterday for our activity together, we decided to pretend like we were the good jars of rice, and everyone took turns complimenting everyone else. As my dad said, it was really neat, and actually felt like getting a $15-$20 gift! It felt great both to give and receive sincere compliments, and made all of us smile. Those compliments are things that we will remember for a long time, and I think they help us to want to be even better. So here's to being positive and helping others to feel good!