Elder Gary L. Stevenson (Oct. '22): "Nourishing and Bearing Your Testimony"

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 I think it is significant that at least two of the twelve spent a considerable portion of their talks in this conference focusing on our testimonies.  It must be important for that percentage of them to feel a need to consider it.  

The Activity:

  1. Make sure that everyone has access to a copy of the talk either digitally or physically.
  2. Explain that you want to spend some time digging into the words of Elder Stevenson and considering the elements of a testimony.
  3. Invite the class members to work in partners to find a direct quote from Elder Stevenson's talk to complete each of the following phrases.  It is important to note that for many of them there are multiple option in the talk.  So, the idea is not to create a catalog of all the possible options in those cases, simply to identify they one that most speaks to each of you.  
    1. A testimony is made of . . . 
    2. A testimony replaces . . .
    3. A testimony is observable by . . .
    4. A testimony is created by . . . 
    5. A testimony helps us . . . 
    6. A testimony grows by . . . 
    7. A testimony is used to . . . 
  4. Allow some time for discussion and collaboration.  During this time walk around the room and listen to what the class members are saying.  Are there really insightful comments from any of them that could be used during later discussion?  
  5. After a few minutes of collaboration time, come back together as a class and discuss what the class members identified to complete the sentence stems.

Using the Activity:

The specific words that an apostle or prophet uses have immense power.  Too often we simply paraphrase or summarize an idea as opposed to directly quoting it.  For this reason, I suggest asking the class members to find direct quotes to finish each sentence.  You could ask them, instead, to consider the sentence stems as questions (or you could re-write them as questions) and to find passages that could answer the questions.  

The power in this activity comes not only from asking them to use Elder Stevenson's exact words, but also in that this is an activity done in partners.  By reducing the amount of possible speakers from a whole class of people to 2 (or maybe 3) it increases the chances of a person feeling a need to contribute and take the activity seriously.  Also, someone may feel comfortable sharing with one other person when they wouldn't want to speak up in a class full of people.  When people participate in class, they are exercising their faith (Elder Bednar has taught this a lot) and as a result, they are more positioned to receive inspiration and/or revelation from the Spirit, including receiving confirmation that the gospel is true.  

Thank you visiting my blog.  Please let me know how your lesson goes.  

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