Teaching Relief Society & Priesthood

A NOTE: Maintaining this blog at this time might be one of the most optimistic things I have done in recent memory :), although I am sure we will eventually be meeting together again for church.  I just have no idea when that will be.  Still, I want to continue this blog even in these times as an expression of hope.  In the meantime, I have begun a separate blog that focuses on sharing ideas to explore the messages of general conference in our homes.  That blog can be found  here .  I always love Elder Renlund's testimony of the Savior, and this talk is a great example of why.  His talks always feel like an invitation to have a more intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father.  The activity for this talk is pretty basic, but it feels like exactly what I would want to do with the message here. The Activity: Read and discuss "The Remarkable Fruits of Remembering God's Goodness and Mercy," par. 21-25 ("These truths should . . . goodness and mercy").

A NOTE: Maintaining this blog at this time might be one of the most optimistic things I have done in recent memory :), although I am sure we will eventually be meeting together again for church.  I just have no idea when that will be.  Still, I want to continue this blog even in these times as an expression of hope.  In the meantime, I have begun a separate blog that focuses on sharing ideas to explore the messages of general conference in our homes.  That blog can be found  here .  This talk hit home to me simply because it focused on an idea that has been on my mind a lot lately-- remembering.  So, my gut reaction when designing this activity was to simply hand out a list of things that I had thought were ways to apply Elder Andersen's counsel in my own life, but that doesn't seem like it would do much good.  :)  So, here is the activity I came up with The Activity: Divide the class members into four groups. Ask each group to read one of the four stories shared by Eld

A NOTE: Maintaining this blog at this time might be one of the most optimistic things I have done in recent memory :), although I am sure we will eventually be meeting together again for church.  I just have no idea when that will be.  Still, I want to continue this blog even in these times as an expression of hope.  In the meantime, I have begun a separate blog that focuses on sharing ideas to explore the messages of general conference in our homes.  That blog can be found  here .  I love the Book of Mormon.  It is at the heart of my testimony of Christ, prophets, and the Restoration.  I feel the Spirit every time I open it and devote my time and attention to it.  So, the idea of the Book of Mormon continuing to come forth in my own life was a principle that stood out to me in conference.  For this activity, I chose to focus on the blessings that we receive from reading/ studying the Book of Mormon.  I did this because I wanted to create an atmosphere in the room where the Spirit c

A NOTE: Maintaining this blog at this time might be one of the most optimistic things I have done in recent memory :), although I am sure we will eventually be meeting together again for church.  I just have no idea when that will be.  Still, I want to continue this blog even in these times as an expression of hope.  In the meantime, I have begun a separate blog that focuses on sharing ideas to explore the messages of general conference in our homes.  That blog can be found  here .  This was the perfect talk to kick off this bicentennial conference in my opinion.  Being a descendant of Hyrum, Pres. Ballard's witness of the prophet and his family is always strong.  It set such a powerful stage for the rest of what followed in conference.  Like many other people, I felt that this conference (and, indeed, this entire year) was a special opportunity to increase and deepen my testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith.  I was struck in this talk by how involved God was in leading Joseph

A NOTE: Maintaining this blog at this time might be one of the most optimistic things I have done in recent memory :), although I am sure we will eventually be meeting together again for church.  I just have no idea when that will be.  Still, I want to continue this blog even in these times as an expression of hope.  In the meantime, I have begun a separate blog that focuses on sharing ideas to explore the messages of general conference in our homes.  That blog can be found  here .  I believe this talk is so important.  As I read it I was struck by how much the prophets and apostles want to make clear to us HOW Father works with us.  Off the top of my head, I can think of at least three of the apostles/First Presidency who gave talks that touch directly on this idea (that is 20% of them that felt this was a topic important enough to address).  If we fail to understand this, we put our testimonies in jeopardy because we are open to attack from the adversary (see I Ne. 2:12).  I hope t