Releif Society "Hand"out

I taught a Relief Society lesson a few weeks ago. The lesson was Pres. Uchtdorf's conference talk from April 2010, Sunday morning: "You Are My Hands" It is such a great talk and I love to listen to Pres. Uchtdorf talk. So I made a movie of him giving his conference talk. I watched it and read it a few times, picked about 4 places that would be a good place to stop the movie and talk about what he just said, ask a question, and hear answers from the Relief Society sisters. I handed out the questions before the lesson so that everyone would have a chance to thick about their question. The lesson went really well. Just the right amount of time. So many of the sister contributed to the lesson. It was GREAT! You of course couldn't do this a lot. But i think every now and then it would be good.

I decided for the handout I would make hand sugar cookies put into little bags tied with a ribbon and a tag.

I seem to have a few problems with making sugar cookie dough. So after the dough was made and had rested in the fridge for the appropriate time. I made a test cookie, and baked it off. Well, it spread all over the cookie sheet and did not look like a hand, maybe a baseball glove but not a hand. So I put all the dough back in the bowl and add 1 cup of flour and mixed it well and put back into the fridge. For the most part the cookies all worked after that.

I found my hand cookie cutter at Orson H. Gigys in Salt Lake. I love that store. I go there when I have to make a wedding cake. I had seen the wall o cookie cutters so I was hopeful. I was rewarded for the drive to this fun store.

Here are some hands all cut out ready to go on to the pan. I baked up about 60 or so cookies only one finger broke off. So I was happy about that. After they cooled completly it was time to pipe and flood.
Summer is much better at this piping and flooding than I am. I free handed the hearts, no really I did. You say they look perfect, you are soooooo nice. I just picked some that turned out ok. Then I flooded the the hearts. A side note here DO NOT ADD FLAVORS LIKE VANILLA TO THE ROYAL ICING. IT WILL NEVER SET UP ALL THE WAY. Just something to keep in mind. :D

Then I piped the hand and flooded the hands. They turned out ok. It is pretty hard to out line the hands with the royal icing. Then you have to thin the royal icing out so that it will flood the cookie. I put the thinned icing in a bottle with a pointed lid (these bottles are usually used for catsup and mayo) instead of using the pastry bag and tip. This worked really well.

One of the stories that Pres. Uchtdorf told of a women that compared herself to a used $20.00 bill. This looks pretty real don't you think?

The other side is a quote from his talk. "I often picture Him with hands outstrected reaching out to comfort, heal, bless, and love. As we emulate His perfect example, our hands can become His Hands, our eyes, His eyes, our Heart His Heart." Pres. Uchtdorf Ensign May 2010

Then I put all of the cookies in a big basket. I passed the cookies out half way through the lesson, and told the sisters to think of five ways their hands could be His hands as they ate the cookie.

It is always good to get out of your comfort zone and teach. I don't like it, but it is good for me.

When you look at your hand think of 5 ways that your hands can become His hands.