Elder Ronald A. Rasband (Apr. '22): "To Heal the World"

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 Over the past decade or so protecting religious freedom has been a repeated message in conference coming from a number of our leaders.  So, it must be important.  Elder Rasband's talk specifically focuses on the positives of religious freedom.

The Activity:

  1. Divide the class into four groups. 
  2. Assign each group one of the four ways Elder Rasband outlines that freedom of religion blesses the world.
    1. Par. 22-27
    2. Par. 28-31
    3. Par. 32-38
    4. Par. 39-42
  3. In their groups ask the class members to discuss how a belief in God (as opposed to strictly a belief in our religion) 1)brings about the benefits Elder Rasband talks about and 2)how we can work to bring those blessings to pass.
  4. After a few minutes, bring the class back together again and ask each group to briefly report back to the rest of the class what they talked about.
  5. As the groups share, discuss common points that are found between the groups discussions.

Using the Activity:

I designed this activity to very specifically focus on how a belief in God brings about these blessings as opposed to simply a belief in the Church because it seems like a large part of the discourse we are hearing from our leaders is about the common ground to be found with other denominations and groups.  This talk was no exception and so it feels like this is an important distinction to make in this activity.  Having said that, this activity can obviously be tweaked to focus on the blessing deriving from membership in and a testimony of the Church.  Another way to think about this is to follow up with a discussion about how the Church itself is helping to bring to pass these specific  blessings throughout the world (especially in ways not mentioned in this talk). If you go this route, you may want to refer to either Sis. Eubank's talk from last conference (found here) or Bishop Budge's talk from the same conference (found here).  

I hope you find this activity useful in your teaching efforts.  

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