Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Helaman 10 - A House of God


Today we studied Helaman 10. To get started, I followed the teacher's manual with the questions included there (pages 202-203). Once we had discussed those points and I had read the two quotes included on those pages, I passed out six popsicle sticks to each student with one piece of construction paper (I let them choose their color :0).

Then I instructed them that they were going to symbolically build a spiritual home, just as they will eventually do "for real" once they leave their parent's home.

The goal in building our homes is to structure them based on gospel teachings. Thus, we talk a lot in our seminary class how Mormon has given us the important records found in The Book of Mormon to help us build our personal lives; he hopes we will do so in a manner pleasing to God.

From the chapter of Helaman 10, I asked them to find six important teachings that could bless their future family. They were to record the verse for each important gospel truth they had found onto each individual popsicle stick.

Once they'd written the verse on the stick, they were to summarize the teaching/truth. I have them do this because they need to process that truth yet one more time as they are recording the brief summary of it onto the popsicle stick.

After they had written the six important gospel concepts on the sticks, then they could glue them onto the construction paper - creating any kind of house structure they liked.

Living in hurricane alley like we do, we had all kinds of homes represented! From tilting homes (that the hurricanes hadn't leveled), to homes with garages, to a church.

But the important part was that the kids had had a chance to process more deeply what Helaman chapter 10 contained for them personally. For after all, what good is just hearing "the word?" We want them to be able to bring it deeper into their lives and make plans that their future will definitely include the gospel of Jesus Christ. Hopefully this little activity today helped bring them one step closer to that.

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Until tomorrow,

just another early-morning-seminary-teacher mom!