Pres. Henry B. Eyring (Apr. '23): "Finding Personal Peace"

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 Generally, in a lesson, we are at our best when we focus on one main topic.  While this talk was all about peace, it had several areas of focus-- how to find peace, our duty to help others find this peace, the importance of parents in their kid's journey towards peace, etc.  This activity takes a similar approach.  The overarching focus is peace, but there is room inside this activity for individual class members to spend time focusing on a single aspect of that topic.

The Activity:

  1. Make sure that each class member has access to a copy of the talk either digitally or physically
  2. Ask the class members to identify some recent troubling headlines/events going on at the current time-- these could be specific situations or more vague issues that are troubling to the class member.
  3. After several of these have been identified, point out that we should not be surprised by the prevalence of these issues
  4. Read par. 27 "Satan's efforts to . . . across the world."
  5. Explain that as an antidote to this we have the Savior.
  6. Read par. 24 "Fifth, it is . . . with Him eternally."
  7. Discuss briefly how the Savior accomplishes this.
  8. Explain that Pres. Eyring addresses three key questions about finding peace that are useful to consider.
    1. How do we find peace in our personal life?
    2. How do we teach our kids to find peace in their lives?
    3. How do we help others find peace in their lives?
  9. Designate a different part of the room for each question and invite the class members to choose which question they are most interested in.
  10. Have them move to the part of the room they have chosen and to form a group with the others who have made the same choice.
  11. Ask the people in each group to scan the talk and discuss what Pres. Eyring says about their question.  They can also bring in their own ideas, experiences, and other sources to help them talk about this.
  12. Allow the groups a few minutes to talk about their question.
  13. Afterwards, come back together and ask each group to report on the highlights of their discussion.

Using the Activity:

This activity has two primary principles of learning and gaining a testimony underlying it.  First, by allowing the class members to explore the aspect of the talk that they are most interested in, it is more likely that they will be talking and thinking about things that they have already been pondering and perhaps even praying about.  This increases the likelihood that they will receive the inspiration that they need.  Second, by reducing the numbers (by putting them in groups as opposed to leaving them as a whole class), more people can participate.  Participation in discussion is a way of exercising faith.  As we exercise faith, we prepare our hearts again to receive revelation.  

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