Let me venture off topic for a moment....Now as I was thinking about this whole warm fuzzy approach the thought "this might be too primary" entered my head. I'm a sucker for cute stuff so are the YW. I can't tell you enough how adorable these warm fuzzies are. Also didn't we learn all the important stuff in primary? I sure did. I think I can sing a primary song that would teach just about every gospel principle :) Back to the story....
As I looked up the story online I found a few different versions and also Dawn was nice enough to e-mail me the two she had which I will include below.
This one is actually a book written by Claude M. Steiner. It's called "The Original Warm Fuzzy Tale"
* You can read the story here: http://www.claudesteiner.com/fuzzy.htm
Here is the the first version Dawn sent me...
Once upon a time there was a village. All of the people in the village got along very well. There was kindness, love, compassion, and justice. Every person in the village owned a special bag. It was given to them by their parents at the age of 3. Inside this bag were hundreds of warm fuzzies. Warm fuzzies were soft, cuddly, cottony little puffs. When you gave someone a warm fuzzy, they felt warm and fuzzy inside. People in the village gave each other warm fuzzies anytime they wanted to let someone know they were loved. When someone received a warm fuzzy, they put it in their bag.
One day, an evil sorceress came to town. She saw that everyone was giving out these warm fuzzies from their bags and she didn’t like it. She went up to one villager and said, “Why do you keep giving away your warm fuzzies? Aren’t you afraid you’re going to run out? Here, take this bag of cold pricklies and give these to the people in your village instead, and keep all your warm fuzzies for yourself.” The villager took the bag because he believed the sorceress’ tale. The next time he ran into a friend, he handed him one of the cold pricklies from his new bag. A cold prickly made someone feel cold and prickly inside, like they were swallowing a pin cushion. Soon all the villagers went to the sorceress and asked for their own bag of cold pricklies since they didn’t want to be the only people handing out warm fuzzies if everyone else was going to hand out cold pricklies. Once you had a cold prickly, you wanted to give it away to someone else as fast as possible.
The sorceress was pleased. Her plan was working perfectly. Now the village was in a state of fear and panic. Everyone started avoiding everyone else so they wouldn’t be given a cold prickly. People hoarded their small supply of warm fuzzies and didn’t give them out to anyone anymore. But no one was happy anymore either.
One day a prince arrived in town and almost immediately someone handed him a cold prickly from their bag. The prince, recognizing the cold prickly, refused to take it. The villager was surprised and tried again. The prince handed the person a warm fuzzy from his bag. The villager was surprised, and a little ashamed that he had tried to give this warm prince a cold prickly and instead received a warm fuzzy.
The prince addressed the crowd and said, “Why do you give each other cold pricklies?” One villager said, “Why should we give away all of our warm fuzzies? Shouldn’t we keep them for ourselves?” Other villagers agreed. But the prince said, “Every time you give away a warm fuzzy a new one is created in your own bag. Don’t you see? The more you give away, the more you will have.”
To demonstrate, the prince had everyone put down their bag of cold pricklies and retrieve their bag of warm fuzzies from their homes. He asked everyone to take out a warm fuzzy from their bag and hand it to a neighbor. This they did, but warily. Then the prince told them to notice that they all still had the same amount of warm fuzzies in their bags as before. People started giving away more warm fuzzies and noticed their bag was never empty. There were indeed enough warm fuzzies for everyone.
The sorceress was very upset and tried to interrupt the prince and get everyone to give out cold pricklies again. But the villagers didn’t want to listen anymore. They threw all their bags of cold pricklies into a wagon, set the sorceress inside it, and sent her out of town.
The villagers realized they’d learned a valuable lesson.
When you give someone a warm fuzzy, they in turn will give it to someone else. Eventually, it will come back around to you.
What do you carry in your bag?
SECOND VERSION
Warm Fuzzies and Cold Pricklies
Long ago only little people lived on the Earth. Most of them dwelt in the little village of swabeedoo, and so they called themselves Swabeedoo-dahs. They were very happy little people and went about with broad smiles and cheery greetings for everybody. One of the things the Swabeedoo-dahs liked best was to give Warm Fuzzies to one another. Each of these little people carried over his shoulder a bag, and the bag was filled with Warm Fuzzies.
Now, it is especially nice to give someone a Warm Fuzzy. It tells the person that they are special. It is a way of saying "I like you." And, of course, it is very pleasing to you, when you take it and feel its warmth and fuzziness against your cheek, just extra-nice. You feel noticed and appreciated when someone gives you a Warm Fuzzy, and you want to do something nice for them in return.
The little people of Swabeedoo loved to give Warm Fuzzies and get Warm Fuzzies, and their lives together were very happy indeed.
Outside the village, in a cold, dark cave, there lived a great green troll. He didn't really like to live all by himself, and sometimes he was lonely. But he couldn't seem to get along with anyone else, and somehow he didn't enjoy exchanging Warm Fuzzies. He thought it was a lot of nonsense. "It isn't cool," was what he would say.
One evening the troll walked into town, and he was met by a kingly little Swabeedoo-dah. "Hasn't this been a fine Swabeedoo-dah day?" said the little person with a smile. "Here, have a Warm Fuzzy. This one's special, and I saved it just for you, for I don't see you in town that often."
The troll looked about to see that no one else was listening. Then he put an arm around the little Swabeedoo-dah and whispered in his ear. "Hey, don't you know that if you give away all your Warm Fuzzies, one of these Swabeedoo-dah days of yours, you're gonna run out of them?" He noted the sudden look of surprise and fear on the little man's face, and then added, peering inside of his fuzzy-bag: "Right now I'd say you've only got about two hundred and seventeen Warm Fuzzies left there. Better go easy on handin' 'em out." With that, the troll padded away on his big green feet, leaving a very confused and unhappy Swabeedoo-dah standing there.
Now, the troll knew that every one of the little people had an inexhaustible supply of Warm Fuzzies. He knew that, as soon as you give a Warm Fuzzy to someone, another one comes to take its place and that you can never, ever run out of Warm Fuzzies in your whole life. But he counted on the trusting nature of the little Swabeedoo-dahs, and on something else that he knew about himself. He just wanted to see if this same something was inside the little people. So, he told his fib, went back to his cave, and waited.
Well, it didn't take long. The first person to come along and greet the little Swabeedoo-dah was a fine friend of his, with whom he had exchanged many Warm Fuzzies before. This little person was surprised to find that when he gave his friend a Warm Fuzzy this time, he received only a strange look. Then he was told to beware of running low on his supply of Warm Fuzzies, and his friend was suddenly gone.
That Swabeedoo-dah told three other that same evening: "I'm sorry, but no Warm Fuzzy for you. I've got to make sure I don't run out." By the next day, the word had spread over the entire village. Everyone had suddenly begun to hoard their Warm Fuzzies. They still gave some away, but very, very carefully. "Discriminatingly," they said.
The little Swabedoo-dahs began to watch each other with distrust, and they began to hide their bags of Warm Fuzzies under their beds for protection at night. Quarrels broke out over who had the most Warm Fuzzies, and pretty soon people began to trade Warm Fuzzies for things, instead of just giving them away. Figuring there were only so many Warm Fuzzies to go around, the mayor of Swabeedoo proclaimed the Fuzzies a system of exchange, and before long the people were haggling over how many Warm Fuzzies it cost to eat a meal at someone's house or stay overnight.
On some dark evenings-the kind the little Swabeedoo-dahs had enjoyed for strolling in the parks and greeting each other to exchange Warm Fuzzies-it wasn't safe to be out and about. Worst of all, something began to happen to the health of the little people. Many of them began to complain of pains in their shoulders and backs, and as time went on, more and more little Swabeedoo-dahs became afflicted with a disease known as softening of the backbone. They walked all hunched over, or (in the worst cases) bent almost to the ground. Their fuzzy-bags dragged on the ground. Many people in town began to say that it was the weight of the bags that caused the disease, and that it was better to leave the bags at home, locked up safely. After a while, you could hardly find a Swabeedoo-dah with his fuzzy-bag on.
At first the troll was pleased with the results of his rumor. He had wanted to see whether the little people would feel and act as he did sometimes when he thought selfish thoughts, and so he felt successful with the way things were going. Now, when he went into town, he was no longer greeted with smiles and offerings of Warm Fuzzies. Instead, the little people looked at him as they looked at each other -with suspicion- and he rather liked that. To him, that was just facing reality. "It's the way the world is," he would say.
But as time went on, worst things happened. Perhaps because of the softening of the backbone, perhaps because no one ever gave them a Warm Fuzzie (no one knows), a few of the little people died. Now, all the happiness was gone from the village of Swabeedoo, as it mourned the passing of its little citizens. When the troll heard about this, he said to himself: "Gosh! I just wanted them to see how the world was. I didn't mean for 'em to die!" He wondered what to do. And then thought of a plan. Deep in his cave, the troll had discovered a secret mine of Cold Pricklies. He had spent many years digging the Cold Prickles out of the mountain, for he liked their cold and prickly feel, and he loved to see his growing hoard of Cold Pricklies, to know that they were all his. He decided to share them with the Swabeedoo-dahs. He filled hundreds of bags with Cold Prickles and took them into the village. When the people saw the bags of Cold Prickles, they were glad, and they received them gratefully. Now they had something to give to one another. The only trouble was that it was just not as much fun to give a Cold Prickly as a warm Fuzzy.
Giving a Cold Prickly seemed to be a way of reaching out to another person, but not in friendship and love. And getting a Cold Prickly gave one a funny feeling too. You were not sure just what the giver meant, for after all, Cold Prickles were cold and prickly. It was nice to get something from another person, but it left you confused, and often with stung fingers.
The usual thing a Swabeedoo-dah said when he received a Warm Fuzzy was "WOW!" but when someone gave him a Cold Prickly, there was usually nothing to say but "UGH!" Some of the little people went back to giving Warm Fuzzies, and of course, each time a Warm Fuzzy was given it made the giver and receiver very joyful indeed. Perhaps it was that it was so unusual, to get a Warm Fuzzy from someone when there were so many of those Cold Pricklies being exchanged.
But giving Warm Fuzzies never really came back into style in Swabeedoo.
Some little people found that they could keep on giving Warm Fuzzies away without ever having their supplies run out, but the art of giving a Warm Fuzzy was not shared by many. Suspicion was still there, in the minds of the people of Swabeedoo. You could hear it in their comments:
"Warm Fuzzy, eh? Wonder what's behind it." "I never know if my Warm Fuzzies are really appreciated." "I gave a Warm Fuzzy, and got a Cold Prickly in return. Just see if I do that again." "You never know about Mabel. A Warm Fuzzy one minute, and Cold Prickly the next!" "I won't give you a Cold Prickly, if you won't give me one." "I want to give my boy a Warm Fuzzy, but he just doesn't deserve it." "Sometimes I wonder if Grandpa has a Warm Fuzzy to his name."
Probably every citizen of Swabeedoo would gladly have returned to the former days when the giving and getting of Warm Fuzzies had been so common. Sometimes a little person would think to himself how very fine it had felt to get a Warm Fuzzy from someone, and he would resolve to go out and begin giving them to everyone freely, as of old. But something always stopped him, like going out to see "how the world was". It was the softening of the backbone.
Good Luck! Make it a year where you give out plenty of warm fuzzies :)
