Elder Jorge F. Zeballos (Oct. '22): "Building a Life Resilient to the Adversary"

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 I know no one is going through this site post by post, which is good.  Still, sometimes I feel silly that I want to write how much I love whatever talk I am writing about in case it sounds redundant.  Nevertheless, here we are.  I loved this talk.  The idea of designing a life that could help carry us through temptations, trials, and troubles is invigorating and to do so by design is empowering.  

The Activity:

  1. Read par. 16-17 "But what is . . . our earthly life."
  2. Discuss the idea of having joy through hard times-- not just before and after.  
  3. Point out that Elder Zeballos teaches that such joy comes because of the gospel practices in our lives.  You may want to reference par. 11-13 where Elder Zeballos specifically mentions fasting and scripture study as two such practices.  
  4. Invite class members to identify gospel practices-- such as the ones above-- that can help us have joy at all moments of our earthly journey.  As these ideas are shared, write them on the board.  The list will probably be very straight-forward (almost Primary-ish, which is good).
  5. Now, invite class members to talk in small groups about how the practices on the board and/or other gospel practices could bring joy specifically in hard times.  Encourage them to share personal experiences that they have had with these habits.  
  6. After a few moments, come back together as a class and ask a couple of people to share.

Using the Activity:

While this activity starts with a list that we could get from most 8 year old primary classes, the idea is to go beyond simply naming these activities to considering specifically how they work in our lives.  The idea is to help people 1) ponder the gospel in step 5-6 and 2) bear witness of the blessings of the gospel.  This will facilitate the presence of the Spirit, which is our ultimate goal as teachers.  

Thank you for visiting my site.  I hope you have found it worth your time.  

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