CFM Activity Sheet (Day of Fasting and Crossword Puzzle)--March 29, 2020

My apologies to all of you for forgetting to double check that my General Conference packet posted correctly yesterday.  All errors are fixed now and you will find it here. 

Below you will find  the activity sheet (including a crossword puzzle and a coloring page reminder about this Sunday's day for fasting) to go along with this week's CFM reading.   

“We are living in a remarkable age when we constantly see the hand of the Lord in the lives of His children.  Our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, know us, love us, and are watching over us.”  Russell M. Nelson

General Conference Packet for April 2020

Hello!   Here's a General Conference packet I created for older kids.   I had fun creating it and hope that your kids enjoy using it. 

I thought it would be easier to get blogging done during quarantine, but the lack of routine is doing a number on all of us!   Hope all of you out there are healthy and finding the blessings in the whole world being on pause. 

Enjoy Conference!

CFM Activity Sheets x2 (for younger and older kids)

Today there are two versions of the activity sheets.  I created one, then decided it was too hard for most kids, so made a younger version with a word search.  Hopefully between the two, you will find one of them perfect for your family.  :)

So, I created these sheets more than a week ago and thought I'd be posting this today from my parents' mission apartment in Paris.   Alas, not only am I  posting this  from home in Pennsylvania, but later today I will be picking my parents up from the airport.  They, along with all senior missionaries and young missionaries with health issues, are being evacuated from Europe.  Their house has tenants living in it, so they will stay with us while they figure out what their next steps will be.  Definitely not quite the spring break we had planned! 

  I think we are all in a little shock of how quickly everything has changed in the last couple of weeks and I hope you are adjusting well to all the life changes.  

FOR OLDER KIDS:






FOR WORD SEARCH LOVERS AND YOUNGER KIDS: 

I don't have a great quote for you today, but I love the story of the Currant Bush as told by Hugh B. Brown.   It's summarized below and is shown in video form here.    I think it's especially apt for the circumstances of the day and ties in well to the CFM reading for this week.  

 

"THE CURRANT BUSH" originally told by Hugh Brown

"I would like to speak of one particular attitude and practice we need to adopt if we're to meet our Heavenly Father's high expectations. It is this: willingly to accept and even seek corrections. Elder Hugh B. Brown told of purchasing a rundown farm in Canada many years ago. As he went about cleaning up and repairing his property, he came across a currant bush that had grown over six feet high and was yielding no berries.

So he pruned it back drastically, leaving only small stumps. Then he saw a drop like a tear on the top of each of these little stumps, as if the currant bush were crying, and thought he heard it say: "How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. ... And now you've cut me down. Every plant in the garden will look down on me. ... How could you do this to me? I thought you were the gardener here."

"Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. I [don't] intend you to be a fruit tree or a shade tree. I want you to be a currant bush, and someday, little currant bush, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to say, 'Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down.'"

Years later, Elder Brown was in line to be promoted to general. But even though he was fully qualified for the promotion, it was denied him because he was a Mormon. Continuing his story, Elder Brown remembered: "I got on the train and started back ... with a broken heart, with bitterness in my soul. ... When I got to my tent, ... I threw my cap on the cot. I clenched my fists, and I shook them at heaven.

I said, 'How could you do this to me, God? I have done everything I could to measure up. ... How could you do this to me?' And then I heard a voice. ... It was my own voice, and the voice said, 'I am the gardener here. I know what I want you to do.' The bitterness went out of my soul, and I fell on my knees by the cot to ask forgiveness for my ungratefulness. ...

And now, almost 50 years later, I look up to [God] and say, 'Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.'" All of us can meet God's high expectations, however great or small our capacity and talent may be".

COME FOLLOW ME CROSSWORD PUZZLE AND COLORING SHEET FOR JACOB 1-4

I hope this blogpost finds you all happy, healthy, and well stocked with toilet paper and hand soap!   We are living in crazy times right now and it's hard not to feel a little alarmed by the whirlwind of fear that seems to be swirling around us.   I hope you find peace and perspective as you study the scriptures this week.   I love the words in Jacob 4:6-10 that remind us that we can have unshaken faith and hope by searching the words of the prophets, by coming unto God with our weaknesses, and by seeking to take our counsel from the Lord. 

"As we think about the future, we should be filled with faith and hope. Always remember that Jesus Christ—the Creator of the universe, the architect of our salvation, and the head of this Church—is in control. "   Elder Ballard {from Face the Future with Faith and Hope, 2012}

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” 2 Timothy 1:7

“Wherefore, be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you, and will stand by you; and ye shall bear record of me, even Jesus Christ, that I am the Son of the living God, that I was, that I am, and that I am to come.”  Doctrine and Covenants 68:6

What Does it Mean to Live the Doctrine of Christ? (YW and Aaronic Priesthood Lesson)

Me, my daughter, and husband are all separately teaching this lesson on Sunday. Here are a few thoughts on teaching that we’ve gathered in our studies this week.

First, before we really get down to discussing what it means to LIVE the Doctrine of Christ, let’s first discuss what actually is the Doctrine of Christ? Lucky for us, the “Come, Follow Me” reading for this week gives us the answers and in plain terms.   Don't you just love how Nephi uses a variation of the word "PLAIN" three times in two sentences in 2 Nephi 31:2-3?  😂 It's like he really wants us to know that the doctrine of Christ is not meant to be complicated.

  I created this visual, based on the episode of “Don’t Miss This” for this week. {By the way, if you don’t watch or listen to the “Don’t Miss This” podcast yet, you’re missing out! They really add a lot of insight and perspective to my CFM studies each week.}   So, I was going to draw this hand large on the board (or you could have it printed out if you prefer) and have them look up the scriptures and fill in the blanks.  This could be a group activity with the class looking up the scriptures one at a time and filling it in together, or you could have them fill it out individually first, then discuss each part afterward.  I think they definitely should be copying this visual down into their journals as they go.  

Then we were going to go through each of the fingers and fill in the blanks, so it'll look something like this: 

Then we will talk about the center of the hand, because the whole Doctrine of Christ  really does begin and end with Christ.    It is through Him that we have the gifts of faith, repentance, baptism, and the Holy Ghost in the first place.   And it is through His atonement that we can return to live with Him again someday. 

I plan on having a copy of this completed one done for them to tape into their journals.  They could also copy it into their journals from the board if that works better for your class.

I was thinking that we would finish up this part of the discussion with reading Moroni 7:41:“And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.”

Then I plan on asking if the Doctrine of Christ sounds familiar to them?   They may recognize that most of it is mentioned in the 4th Article of Faith, and more importantly, it's what they've been learning their whole lives!

 After discussing the simplicity, beauty, and importance of what the Doctrine of Christ is, I thought we'd start talking about what it means to live it.   These two quotes from Elder Ballard's talk (the one mentioned in the lesson) would be a great place to start:

"The best ways for us to see the spiritual purposes of the Church are to live the true, pure, and simple teachings of Christ and also to apply the Savior’s two great commandments: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart. … Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”   Elder Ballard

" Loving God and loving our neighbors is the doctrinal foundation of ministering; home-centered, Church-supported learning; Sabbath-day spiritual worship; and the work of salvation on both sides of the veil supported in the Relief Societies and the elders quorums. All of these things are based on the divine commandments to love God and to love our neighbors. Can there be anything more basic, more fundamental, and more simple than that?" Elder Ballard

I really want to keep the focus on the plainness and simplicity of the Doctrine of Christ, so my plan was to ask a few questions from the lesson plan after reading the quotes and let that lead where our discussion goes from there.  

•  How do each of these principles of the gospel relate to each other? 
• What blessings do we receive when we follow the doctrine of Christ?

What would you add to this lesson?   I'd love to hear your thoughts on it too!    And let me know if you end up using any of these ideas in your lesson.  :)

CFM Activity Sheet for 1 Nephi 31-33 (March 8, 2020)

Here is a free double-sided 1/2 page activity sheet to go along with the Come, Follow Me reading for the week of March 2-8, 2020.   It's all about the Doctrine of Christ and I hope will be a good kick-off for discussions in your families and classes.  😀

 If you have any feedback on what I've been doing on this blog recently, I would love to hear it.  I'm pretty committed to continue doing the CFM activity sheets, but my pageviews are so low, I'm not sure any of the rest of what I've been doing is resonating with anyone.   What do you come to my blog for?   Is there anything I can change or do that would make the content on my blog more meaningful or accessible to you?    

Thanks in advance for your feedback.  Have a great week!