Elder Richard J. Maynes (Oct. 17): "Earning the Trust of the Lord and Your Family"

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The Activity:

1.     On the board draw a Venn diagram (2 circles that partially overlap).  Label the first circle “Earning Heavenly Father’s trust” and the second circle “Earning your family’s trust.”

2.     Create a number of strips of paper.  On each strip of paper write one of the following four questions:

a.      How do we earn Heavenly Father’s trust?

b.     How do we earn the trust of our family?

c.      What is a blessing or earning Heavenly Father’s trust?

d.     What is a blessing of earning our family’s trust?

3.     Put the slips of paper in a hat or bag.

4.     Ask each class member to choose a slip of paper.

5.     Have them write a single answer to the question on the back of strip of paper.  They can get this answer from their own lives or from the talk.

6.     Have class members come up to the board and tape the slip of paper where it goes on the Venn diagram.

7.     Discuss the answers given

8.     At the end, ask the class members to jot down something they can do this next week to more completely earn the trust of Heavenly Father and/or their family.



Using the Activity:

This activity is best used at the beginning of class.  The idea is that by drawing on the collective knowledge of the class members, you begin the discussion with a wealth of information and starting points.  Also, everyone has already contributed.  You have built in a low stakes way for each person to exercise their faith by contributing their ideas.  This will open their hearts more fully to receiving the whispers of the Holy Spirit.  Also, the act of getting up and moving around—even if it is just to walk to the board—can be effective in helping class members engage more fully.  It is something that we don’t normally do in Church classes.  That can carry over to other things the class members do.

I pray that this activity will be of value to you in your planning.  As always, please let me know how things worked for you and if you have any other questions/comments. 

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