B+C+B+C+B+C: Sunday YW lesson

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Sunday YW lesson

I love/hate teaching YW.

Hate: the time it takes to prepare. I spend hours. And I don't have hours. So I feel like I get behind in everything else in life.

LOVE: Everything else about it! I love sharing what I've learned with these awesome 12-18yr old girls. I love learning FROM these girls! I love studying the scriptures with them and learning together! There's a beautiful strong spirit in our classroom every week that energizes and refreshes my soul. I'm so grateful to observe the Sabbath day. What a loss to treat it like any other or think it's there for any other purpose than to worship our Heavenly Father.

Today's lesson was about strengthening our testimonies. Testimonies come by revelation from the Holy Ghost. He reveals the truth to us as we pray, study, and live the Gospel. I know this is true.

During the lesson, I asked for a volunteer to come stand up. Silence. Waited. Waited. Finally, one girl slowly came up. I smiled, handed her a dollar, said "Here's some cash! You can go sit down now!"

Shock and surprise from the rest! "WHAT?! I wanna volunteer!" "I'll do it!" "You didn't tell us what we'd be getting!"

I stated, "Looks like a lot of people here today missed out on an OPPORTUNITY. WHY did you miss out? Was it fear? Scared you'd have to do something dumb or hard or embarrassing? Was it apathy? You don't care and just wanna sit there and do nothing? Was it distraction? Your mind is off in la-la land, thinking of boys, school work, lunch, your phone, and everything besides what's most important right now? Was it hesitation? You wanted to volunteer, you were just too slow? You have so many opportunities right now in your stage of life. Sacrament Meeting, Sunday School, Young Womens, Personal Progress, Mutual, Seminary, Family activities, personal prayer and scripture study....Do NOT miss out on these opportunities because of fear, laziness, distractions, apathy....because the blessings of taking advantage of opportunities are better than you can ever imagine! You think CASH is a cool prize? Live the Gospel to the fullest, develop a rock solid testimony, and you will be rewarded with the greatest "prize" you can imagine!"

Then I had some girls come up and share snippets from GenConf messages I had them prepare ahead of time, highlighting specific ways to strengthen our testimonies.

Then, to tie it in with Mother's Day, I told them that sometimes we struggle and need to temporarily lean on others with more experience and wisdom than we have. Who better to lean on than our loving, strong mothers?! (fortunately, all my girls do have active moms, otherwise I wouldn't have done this activity of course). I handed them all a photo of themself and their mom when they were little. Then I handed them a short statement of testimony. They went around reading the testimonies, and when they thought it was the one the one their mom wrote they had to declare, "That's my mama's testimony!!" Then they put the photo and testimony up on the board together. It was so cool seeing them all listening so INTENTLY! At the end I put up the paper, "And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers saying..." and we all read the next sign together: "We did not doubt, our mothers knew it!"

No comments:

Quotes I want to remember

"The Lord knows our bearing capacity, both as to coping and to comprehending, and He will not give us more to bear than we can manage at the moment, though to us it may seem otherwise. Just as no temptations will come to us from which we cannot escape or which we cannot bear, we will not be given more trials than we can sustain."
- Neal A. Maxwell

"It is a fundamental truth that the responsibilities of motherhood cannot be successfully delegated. No, not to day-care centers, not to schools, not to nurseries, not to babysitters. We become enamored with men's theories such as the idea of preschool training outside the home for young children. Not only does this put added pressure on the budget, but it places young children in an environment away from mother's influence."
-Ezra Taft Benson

“Perhaps there has never been a time when we had greater need to pray and to teach our family members to pray. Prayer is a defense against temptation. It is through earnest and heartfelt prayer that we can receive the needed blessings and the support required to make our way in this sometimes difficult and challenging journey we call mortality.”
-Thomas S. Monson

“Live the gospel as conspicuously as you can. Keep the covenants your children know you have made. And bear your testimony! Don’t just assume your children will somehow get the drift of your beliefs on their own.
-Jeffrey R. Holland

"We hold in our arms the rising generation. They come to this earth with important responsibilities and great spiritual capacities. We cannot be casual in how we prepare them. Our challenge as parents and teachers is not to create a spiritual core in their souls but rather to fan the flame of their spiritual core already aglow with the fire of their premortal faith."
-Neil L. Andersen

"Certainly there are times when getting the family together to read the scriptures does not stack up as a spiritual experience worthy of a journal entry. But we must not be deterred. There are special times when the spirit of a son or daughter is just right and the power of these great scriptures goes down into their heart like fire. As we honor our Heavenly Father in our homes, He will honor our efforts."
-Neil L. Andersen

President Hinckley admonished both men and women to be nurturers. He said, ‘How much more beautiful would be the society in which we live if every father . . . and . . . mother regarded [their] children . . . as gifts from the God of heaven . . . and brought them up with true affection in the wisdom and admonition of the Lord.’ ”
-Susan W. Tanner

"Children are like trees. When they are young, their lives can be shaped and directed, usually with ever so little effort. Said the writer of Proverbs, 'Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it' (22:6). That training finds its roots in the home. There will be little of help from other sources. Do not depend on government to help in this darkening situation. Barbara Bush, wife of former U.S. president George Bush, spoke wisely: 'Your success as a family, our success as society, depends not on what happens at the White House, but on what happens inside your house.' "
-Gordon B. Hinckley

“I give counsel to husbands and wives. Pray for the love which allows you to see the good in your companion. Pray for the love that makes weaknesses and mistakes seem small. Pray for the love to make your companion’s joy your own. Pray for the love to want to lessen the load and soften the sorrows of your companion.”
-Henry B. Eyring

“Reverent behavior is not a natural tendency for most children. It is a quality that is taught by parents and leaders through example and training. But remember, if reverence is rooted in love, so is the teaching of it. Harshness in our training begets resentment, not reverence.”
-Margaret S. Lifferth

"There is no one perfect way to be a good mother. Each situation is unique. Each mother has different challenges, different skills and abilities, and certainly different children. What matters is that a mother loves her children deeply and, in keeping with the devotion she has for God and her husband, prioritizes them above all else."
- M. Russell Ballard

“As parents, we should remember that our lives may be the book from the family library which the children most treasure. Are our examples worthy of emulation? Do we live in such a way that a son or a daughter may say, ‘I want to follow my dad,’ or ‘I want to be like my mother’?”
-Thomas S. Monson

“Security for our families comes from learning self-control, avoiding the excesses of this world, and being temperate in all things.”
-Kent D. Watson

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Sunday YW lesson

No comments:

Pageviews last month