Elder Gerrit W. Gong (Oct. '23): "Love Is Spoken Here"

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 I find Elder Gong's speaking style so interesting.  For me, I have to sit with his talks and read them a couple of times to see his bigger purpose.  Then, I am moved by the depth of what I find there, and I'm sure there is more there (as there is in probably every conference talk).  This talk was no different.  The activity I have designed aims to highlight my personal biggest takeaways.  

The Activity:

  1. Make sure every class members has access to a copy of the talk either digitally or physically.
  2. Discuss the idea that the ways God loves us differ from the ways we love each other.  
  3. Point out that we need to learn to love as Father does.
  4. Read par. 30-31 "Interestingly, repeating extensive . . . and covenant belonging."
  5. Discuss what this quote teaches about how we can best learn to love as God does.
  6. Invite the class members to take a couple of minutes to look back through the talk to the many actions Elder Gong discusses.  In doing so, the class members should consider 1) what this teaches about how Father loves and 2) how we might better emulate this in our individual lives.
  7. Give them a couple of minutes
  8. Come back together as a class and ask the class members to share some of what they learned.

Using the Activity:

As I said in the intro, I consider this idea of loving more as Father and Christ love us to be of central importance in this talk.  Beyond that there are a couple of principles that serve as a foundation for this activity.  First, as always we try to center the class members' perspectives in the lesson by allowing them to look back over the talk to see what stands out to them.  Second, any time we read anything, having a purpose helps us get more out of it.  So, by asking the class members to skim over Elder Gong's talk looking for a specific theme we are increasing the odds that parts will stick with them.

Thank you for visiting my blog.  Please let me know how these ideas work for you.

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