Family Home Evening Lesson: How was the Priesthood Restored?

You can get some great information on this topic from here and here.

I decided to start out by showing parts of this video.

Although the video is very good, I was afraid that my kids might have a hard time understanding some of it.

I decided to play the first segment, titled, "How did the Apostles receive authority at the time of Christ?"  This segment is 1 minute long.  Then I stopped the video and we discussed what we just saw and heard.

After going to a mountain to pray and ponder, the Savior selected and called his 12 Apostles.  When his earthly ministry was over, he bestowed upon Peter all of the keys to lead the church.

The second segment is "How was the authority eventually lost?"  I did not show this segment, I just explained to my children that back in those days there weren't phones or television or magazines.  The only way people learned the gospel or were taught how to be good members of the church, or how to correctly perform ordinances was from face to face contact.  They did write some letters, but it could take a long time for letters to get from one place to another.  If people had questions about doctrine, they were pretty much left to themselves to figure it out.

I gave each of my children a key that I had printed out (see the bottom of this post for the keys).  I explained that when Jesus called his Apostles, he gave conferred upon them the priesthood and gave them keys. After Christ's death, the Apostles tried to teach people the correct way to do things, but because they were unable to meet together often, people changed teachings and changed the way ordinances were performed. Over time, they were killed or died.  (As I explained this, I took the keys away one by one.)

I explained that soon Heavenly Father's priesthood wasn't on the earth anymore.  No one had the priesthood keys to lead and guide the affairs of the church.  Thus a restoration was necessary.

Then I showed the segment that starts at 2:00 (from Elder Perry's video above), "What Led to the Priesthood Being Restored?"

We also watched this video.

I finished up by asking the kids the following questions to make sure they understood what we had learned:

1. Who called and ordained the 12 Apostles during Christ's time on Earth?
2. Before Jesus went to live with Heavenly Father, who did he give the priesthood keys to?
3. When someone holds and can exercise all of the priesthood keys, what position do they hold in the church? (This is technically a review question from other lessons, but it was applicable.)
4. What happened when all of the Apostles died or were killed?
5. How was the priesthood restored to the earth during our day?
6. Why was a restoration of the priesthood necessary?

Finish up the lesson by showing the Priesthood Line of Authority for the patriarch in your family.   This was important  for me to show to my family as Jared would be receiving his own line of authority the next day as part of his 12 Days of Priesthood.

Keys by Wendy H  - I got the clipart for these keys from here.