Alma 44 - A Gospel Quilt

Our scriptural block today was Alma 44.

ACTIVITY:
Interestingly enough, the scripture we are working on for scripture mastery this week is Alma 37:6-7:

"Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.

"And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls."

This scripture mastery wove perfectly into what we discussed by the end of class today. But first for the activity!

I divided the scripture block into segments and gave each team of two students a square piece of paper. Their assignment was to make a quilt block with a scene depicting their portion of the chapter. They were to also come up with what they felt was the most important thing an individual could learn from that piece of the scriptures.

Click on the picture to increase the size and you'll be able to see some delightful creations the students made. The phrases surrounding their artwork were the lessons they picked out from their particular verses.

APPLICATION:
Using the scriptures we'd read from our scripture block, we talked about how apostates of the church oftentimes create the most havoc for members of the church. We talked about how any one of us, perhaps even in a few short years, could fall away from gospel teachings. We then turned to our scripture mastery and discussed how not only the Lord uses small and simple means to accomplish his work. The adversary also uses small and simple means to budge us from the gospel path.

I felt prompted to share an experience. I judiciously am quite careful to only share "about me" when prompted. But I felt strongly I should today. So I did.

I shared how I had once been in the temple and felt a warning voice that I would know/have good friends that at some point in their life would leave the church. This rocked me at the time and I shared that with the students. But what the spirit was telling me was that I was not to let this impact my own personal journey back to my Heavenly Father. We are to serve others, yes. We are to work to bring our friends back, yes. But we are not to let their choices deflect us from the proper path of redemption.

We discussed as a class how Zerahemnah and others had the gospel teachings and somehow, through small and simple means, the adversary had led them the wrong direction in life. And what was the result? At least for Zerahemnah? We can read that in this particular chapter, Alma 44.

We finished the discussion by talking how great it would be to have a "thought-o-meter" to warn us of Satan's small and simple deceptions. Then they realized that we already have a "thought-o-meter": it has been given us through the gift of the Holy Ghost. Our challenge is in listening to it and receiving the Lord's small and simple means in our life - that way we will remain on the gospel sod and return triumphly to the Lord one day, rather than ending up like Zarahemna.

We worked on a "gospel quilt" today. Truly small and simple means are like individual quilting blocks. Let's use them successfully!

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Until tomorrow,

just another early-morning-seminary-teacher mom! :0)