Ideas for Teaching Children
Through His prophets, the Lord warns me of spiritual danger.
To start a discussion about warnings from the Lord, you could talk about warnings we receive from other people about dangers we cannot see. Some examples might include a slippery floor, a coming storm, or an approaching car. Maybe you and your children could look at examples of warning signs and compare these warnings to the warnings the Lord gives us. According to Doctrine and Covenants 1:4, 37–39, how does the Lord warn us? What has He warned us about recently? Perhaps you could watch or read parts of recent general conference messages and look for examples of God’s “voice of warning.” (the video is below)
For younger students:
For Older Students:
(sorry, only in color)
(only in color)
Sing together a song about prophets, such as the last verse of “Follow the Prophet” (Children’s Songbook, 111). Share your testimony that the prophet speaks the word of God.
You can switch the faces of these two prophets while you sing the song.
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Voice of warning, General Conference message:
Mitzi from Comefollowmekid.com made and published this book. I helped with some of the art. It is a great gift for anyone who doesn't own a printer. Just click on the image.
The Restoration helps me face the challenges of the latter days.
To encourage discussion about Doctrine and Covenants 1:17, you and your children could imagine you are preparing for a trip. What would you pack? If you knew ahead of time that it would rain or that your car or bus would get a flat tire, how would that affect the way you prepared for the trip? Read together verse 17, and talk about what the Lord knew would happen to us. How did He prepare for it? (If necessary, explain that a “calamity” is a disaster or terrible thing.) How do God’s commandments help us deal with the challenges of our time?
You can do this same thing with a real suit case and real items.
Here is a bigger suit case, but you will have to attach the two pieces together.
Lay these items on the floor. Tell your students you are going on a trip, but you don’t know what to expect. Show them the suitcase. Then say something like: “What would I pack if I knew the power was going to go out in my hotel room?” Let them choose a picture to put in the suitcase. “ What if my plane was late and I got hungry?” Let a different child choose a picture to put in the suitcase. After all the images are used, read D&C 1:17.
The Lord called Joseph Smith to be a prophet.
To learn about the role of Joseph Smith in restoring the Savior’s gospel, you and your children could look at a picture of the Savior and a picture of Joseph Smith (see the pictures in this outline) and talk about what the Savior gave us through Joseph Smith. Your children could look for examples in Doctrine and Covenants 1:17, 29. Tell your children how you know that God “called upon my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., and spake unto him from heaven” (verse 17).
I made a coloring book with these ideas, it is in my store.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord’s “true and living church.”
What does it mean to say that the Church is “true and living”? To get your children thinking about this question, perhaps you could show them living and nonliving things—such as a live plant and a dead plant. How do we know something is living? Then you could read Doctrine and Covenants 1:30 and talk about what it might mean for the Church to be “true and living.”
