Elder Dale G. Renlund (Apr. 18): "Family History & Temple Work: Sealing & Healing

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This activity is designed to be used at the beginning of the lesson. 

The Activity:
  1. Create a sheet that has lines such as the following on it:
    1. Learning of the Savior and His Atonement.
    2. Increasing your faith so your conversion becomes deeper and more abiding.
    3. Feeling the love of the Lord so that you have more joy.
    4. Seeking for greater blessings for your family.
    5. Enhancing your powers of discernment.
    6. Serving others more effectively.
    7. Protecting yourself more completely from temptation and the influence of the Adversary.
    8. Refining and sanctifying your heart.
    9. Building more motivation to repent.
    10. Increasing the influence of the Holy Ghost in your life.
  2. NOTE:  Those ten items come from the bulleted list in Elder Renlund's talk.  There are more items than I have represented on here.  Feel free to look at that list and choose those items that are most pertinent for your class to include on your sheet.
  3. Begin by talking about how there never seems to be enough time in our lives. 
  4. As you do this, pass out the sheet you created.
  5. Now, ask the class members to consider how Heavenly Father would have them use their time.
  6. Ask the class to consider how much time they are spending in each of the items on the list as compared to the amount of time they should be spending on each thing.  Then, on a scale of 1-5, rank themselves (5 = right on track; 3 = some time but not nearly enough; 1 = don't even do it at all).
  7. Discuss the results briefly.  The important thing is to note that it can feel like there is always too much to do. 
  8. Now, introduce the topic by explaining that there is one thing that we can do, which will help us accomplish all of the items on that list.
  9. Discuss the talk
Using the Activity:

I was impressed by the promises Elder Renlund made about the blessings that come from family history and temple work.  When I reflected on it, those promises echoed my personal experiences.  Also, I sometimes feel like family history work, in particular, is something that I will get to when I am older, which I understand is not the right attitude.  This activity comes out of those two thoughts. 

This is not a particularly spiritual activity; it is not designed to be.  Instead, the idea is to simply provide motivation to engage with family history and temple work.  Hopefully, after the activity class members feel the importance and that helps them be prepared to feel the Spirit about this topic as it is discussed in the class. 

As always, thank you for visiting my site and I hope that you have found something of use to you.

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