After viewing the most recent General Conference session last April, I felt impressed that I needed to review the messages that were shared with my children. What better time and place to do that then during Family Home Evening?
This week I am sharing the lessons that we have done in the last few months which were related to the April 2011 General Conference. In most cases I focused on one or two quotes from the talk, and then had a coloring page or activity for the children to do. The highlighted quote and activity page are displayed on our wall throughout the week as a reminder of the lesson. In addition, I make sure to show a picture of the General Authority whose words we are studying, so my children can connect a face with the words.
“As our conference comes to a close, I ask you to reflect in the days ahead not only on the messages you have heard but also on the unique phenomenon that general conference itself is—what we as Latter-day Saints believe such conferences to be and what we invite the world to hear and observe about them. We testify to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people that God not only lives but also that He speaks, that for our time and in our day the counsel you have heard is, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, “the will of the Lord, … the word of the Lord, … the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation.”
Jeffrey R. Holland, “An Ensign to the Nations”, April 2011 General Conference
Lesson Plan
Talk about General Conference. What do you remember from it? Talk about the living prophets on the earth today, and how their words spoken at General Conference are scriptures specific for our day. It is important to read and study their words, so that is what we will be doing at Family Home Evening in the coming months. Discuss the above quote.
Additional quotes that stood out to me
“In wanting to measure up to the stern as well as embrace the soothing in our general conference messages, please be reassured that when we speak on difficult subjects, we understand not everyone is viewing pornography or shirking marriage or having illicit sexual relationships. We know not everyone is violating the Sabbath or bearing false witness or abusing a spouse. We know that most in our audience are not guilty of such things, but we are under a solemn charge to issue warning calls to those who are—wherever they may be in the world. So if you are trying to do the best you can—if, for example, you keep trying to hold family home evening in spite of the bedlam that sometimes reigns in a houseful of little bedlamites—then give yourself high marks and, when we come to that subject, listen for another which addresses a topic where you may be lacking. If we teach by the Spirit and you listen by the Spirit, some one of us will touch on your circumstance, sending a personal prophetic epistle just to you” (Holland, source).
Thanks for the reminder!
Yep, it’s another night for a bedlamite fhe!