Elder Donald L. Hallstrom (Oct. 17): "Has the Day of Miracles Ceased?"

The Activity:

1.     Give every class member a sheet of paper with these questions on it?

a.      What is a miracle?

b.     When do (have) miracles happen(ed) (in our ward)?

c.      Why do miracles happen (or not happen)?

d.     Who receives miracles?

e.     How are miracles brought about?

2.     Give class members time to consider these questions quietly.  You may ask them to jot down some notes about each question.

3.     Have the class members stand up and find someone to talk about the first question with.  They are to spend just a few moments with any one person before finding someone new to talk with.  With their partners, they are to look for connections, new insights, and deeper understandings.

4.     Repeat this step for each question.  Some of the questions may need more time to talk before moving on.

5.     Come back together and ask them to report on what they learned about each question.

6.     As they share what they learned, remember to add in quotes and principles from Elder Hallstrom’s talk.

Using the Activity:

This activity is valuable not only because it gets people talking, but also hopefully it gets our class members listening to a number of different people and perspectives.  For larger groups, this could be especially important as not all quorum or class members know each other very well.  Having an opportunity to speak even for a moment to another person can strengthen or begin to build a bond of caring and mutual respect that we need, if we are to become one as God would have us be? 

Along those lines, you might want to focus the questions more generally on the ward/quorum/class to help everyone see God’s hand working in their midst, although that would be done only after the Spirit directs us to. 

Please let me know how this activity worked for you.  Or if you do something different (inspired by this activity or not), let us know what you did and how it went.  Thank you.