General Conference Packet Roundup

It's nearly time for General Conference and it seems like I am always scrambling at the last minute to print out activity packets for my girls. Well, not this year.

Here's what I've found.

A conference packet directly from the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Also, a packet from Deseret News.

A packet from LDS Bookstore.

A packet from Somewhat Simple

A few ideas from The Red Crystal.

Sugardoodle has a conference section.

Katie's Blog-Ness has created a very cute Conference Train.

What are your favorite conference traditions?

General Conference Study Helps for Adults & Teens

Yesterday, I posted about Conference Packets for kids.  Why should they have all the fun?  Today, I am highlighting some of my favorite General Conference study helps for adults and teens.

Allison Kimball, who is super creative and all together awesome, has put together an amazing General Conference Notebook Download, which is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian.  These are more for embellishing your own notebook.

Sugardoodle.net has put together a great packet which is available in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

There is also an older version of Sugardoodle.net's conference packet available here.  It has a few games in it for adults who lack concentration like myself....

Prepared NOT Scared has prepared downloadable sheets for note taking.  She also has  binder cover avaiable so you can print everything out and keep your notes secure in a 3-ring binder.

The Red Headed Hostess also has a printable note-taking packet that is a couple of years old, but will still work well for this conference.

VisitingTeaching.net has a printable page for you to take notes on.  Just print as many pages as you would like.

One of my favorite designers, Holy Handouts, has created this note-taking page.  Although it was created for conference in 2011, the design still holds up well for this year.

She has also created one with a spring theme.

Now I just have to decide which one I am going to use.

How Do the Things I Say Affect Those Around Me? Lesson Handout & FHE Lesson

I mentioned last week, that my Mia Maid advisor related a quote from the talk Thy Speech Reveals Thee by L.Tom Perry about correcting speech habits using a 3-step method.  She was leading our discussion for September's Come Follow Me lesson topic: How Do the Things I Say Affect Those Around Me?

Here is the printable that I made so that I can hang it up and remind myself.

As I have been trying to focus on these 3 steps over the past week, I have found that this method works not only for correcting a swearing habit, but also is a great method to speak more nicely to those around you.

I used the handout I created last night for Family Home Evening.  I gave a lesson on speaking more kindly and using better language within our family.  A couple of great songs to sing with this lesson are, Kindness Begins With Me, Let Us Oft Speak Kind Words, Love is Spoken Here, and Love At Home.

I started out by reading Ephesians 4:29-32 and asked the kids to listen for what we weren't supposed to do and what we were supposed to do.

 29 Let no corrupt ^acommunication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

 30 And ^agrieve not the holy ^bSpirit of God, whereby ye are ^csealed unto the day of redemption.

 31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and ^aanger, and clamour, and ^bevil ^cspeaking, be put away from you, with all ^dmalice:

 32 And be ye ^akind one to another, tenderhearted, ^bforgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.

We talked about what "corrupt communication" could mean.  We also talked about what being tenderhearted meant.

Then I showed the kids this sign I had printed and framed.

credit

We talked about each letter and tried to think of examples of when each question would help us decide whether to say something or not.  We are going to put this in our kitchen to remind us to "THINK" before we speak.

Finally, I showed them this printout about the difference between "Informing" and "Tattling".

credit

Finally, here are the links to my printout.  You can either print the full page version, or 2 per page.

How Can I Be in the World But Not of the World? Come Follow Me Lesson

The talks and scriptures for this lesson were amazing!  There was so much good stuff, that it makes it really hard to choose what to focus on for our discussion.

I really liked the example that Elder Hales used of Nehemiah.  The account is found in Nehemiah 6. Nehemiah is doing this great work of building a wall to protect the city of Jerusalem.  Of this Elder Hales says, "Some wanted him to come down and compromise his position, but Nehemiah refused.  He was not intolerant of others; he simply explained,  "I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down; why should the work cease ...?"

I love that Elder Hales says that Nehemiah was not being intolerant.  I feel that often in today's world when we stand up for our beliefs and the standards we have set for ourselves as Latter-day Saints, we are labeled intolerant and self-righteous.  There is nothing wrong with standing by and up for your beliefs!  I don't demand that others change their beliefs to match mine, but I do request that they be respectful of what I believe and the way I choose to live.

In our lesson on Sunday, I hope to bring up discussion questions that cover these points:

1. We are here on earth for a purpose.  We are here to get a body, to be tested, to gain knowledge and develop talents, and to serve God's children.  These are the reasons that we must be "in the world".
2. Discuss ideas on how we can be in the world but not of the world.  What do we need to do?  I hope to use a chunk of scriptures from the lesson outline for this discussion. (1 Nephi 15:23–25; Alma 34:39; Helaman 5:12; D&C 10:5;27:15–18; 87:8 ). I also would like to use a couple of paragraphs from Sister Elaine S. Dalton's talk, Remember Who You Are. It is the third and fourth paragraphs -- beginning with "This is a magnificent time to be on earth..."  
3. Also, hoping to cover questions like:

• Why set a city on a hill?  Why does it matter if the city is hidden or not?
• Why does the world sometimes mock and despise the followers of Christ?
• Why does one who has tasted of the fruit of the tree of life (God's love), sometimes become ashamed by the mocking of those in the "great and spacious building"?  How can we protect ourselves from the scoffing and mocking?  I also want to point out here that it's not just mocking that we need to be aware of.  It is also cunning deception by Satan.

I made an insert for our study journals for this lesson. 

You can print it out by clicking on the link below.  If a full page is too large for your study journal, go into "properties" and adjust the printing size to 80-90% of the normal size.

***UPDATE**  I have had several people say that the links below are blurry when printed.  You can either email me at ydnewc1[at]gmail[dot]com or try downloading the .pdf from my google docs link here:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BzE4C6jQLVXKdVRQTml0NXdQMXc&usp=sharing

Download from Google Docs at this link.

How Can I Be in the World but Not of the World by Wendy H

Personal Progress Integrity Value Experience #3

I've slowed down a little on completing my Personal Progress. (what is personal progress?  find out here.) For the past couple of weeks, I have been working on Integrity Value Experience #3.

The Savior is the perfect example of integrity; He did what He promised the Father He would do. Read 3 Nephi 11:10–11. Study the lives of other individuals in the scriptures who lived with integrity. Read Genesis 39; the book of Esther;Job 2:3; 27:3–6; Daniel 3 and 6; Acts 26; Doctrine and Covenants 124:15; and Joseph Smith—History 1:21–25. In your journal identify the ways these people demonstrated integrity. Think of a time when you had the courage to show integrity, especially when it was not easy or popular. Share your experience and your feelings about it in a testimony meeting or lesson or with a parent or leader.

This experience requires quite a bit of reading, so I have been working on reading the chapters here and there and then writing down my thoughts.  I wanted to put something together that I could glue in my study journal and this is what I came up with.

If you are not going to be pasting this into a study journal, you can print it on sheet by setting your printer setting to "print on both sides" or by printing page 1 and then flipping the page over and printing page 2 on the other side.

Integrity Value Experience 3 Worksheet by Wendy H

The cute little flower graphic came from mormonshare.com, which you can find here.

Priesthood Line of Authority Bookmark

I posted the other day that we started the 12 days of Priesthood at our house, since Jared will be turning 12 very soon.

As a quick review, when Jared turns 12, and after he has a worthiness interview with our bishop, Nathan will have the opportunity to confer the Aaronic Priesthood on Jared.

We've been preparing him for this responsibility for his whole life really, but we've stepped up the preparation over the last couple of months.  We've had special family home evening lessons and we've started a 12 day countdown to his ordination.

The other day, he received 3 books that will help him now that he is going into the Young Men's program. The books he received were For the Strength of Youth, Fulfilling Our Duty to God, and True to the Faith.  I know that if he will take the time to study and ponder the words in these books, he will know his responsibilities, gain a greater testimony of the gospel and have a desire to live the way Heavenly Father wants us to live.

For one of his gifts leading up to the big day, I wanted to give him a bookmark that he could keep in his scriptures with his Priesthood Line of Authority.  We talked about the restoration of the priesthood in our last Family Home Evening lesson and also about Nathan's priesthood line of  authority.  

I looked online and couldn't really find anything that I was in love with, so I made my own.  It's not fancy, but I think it will be great.

If it were for a girl, I would have punched a hole in the top and put some ribbon through, but it's for my son and the more simple the better.  I laminated the bookmarks so they would be a little more durable. 

I uploaded my document to Scribd in case anyone else wants to save themselves some trouble.  Just download it as a .docx file and you will be able to open it in Word and edit the names and dates.

Priesthood Line of Authority by Wendy H

You'll see that I made two different sets.  One is in blue and one is red of course, but I also couldn't decide which of Nathan's Priesthood Lines of Authority to use.  One is from him being conferred the Melchizedek Priesthood and being ordained to the office of Elder, and the other is from his ordination to the office of High Priest in the Melchizedek Priesthood.  Since Nathan's paternal grandfather didn't ordain Nathan's dad to either office, and each ordination was done by a different man, the lines are different.

I did find it interesting though that there is a commonality in both lines (besides the originations) - on 11 June 1961, two men Milton Reed Hunter and Seymour Dilworth Young were both ordained to the office of High Priest.  These were performed by different men, but on the same day.  I don't know that there is any significance to it, but I thought it was interesting.

Why is family important? Come Follow Me - August Lesson

"Without the family, there is no plan; there is no reason for mortal life."  Julie B. Beck

This Sunday I will be leading the discussion for our combined young women lesson.  My topic question is why is family important?

Way back in February, I taught the combined YW lesson on the Plan of Salvation.  I posted a little bit about it here.  Since Sister Beck says that without the family there is no plan, I decided to go back and review my notes for that lesson.  

The main point of my lesson back in February was that a discussion of the Plan of Salvation was not complete without a discussion of:

1. The Creation
2. The Fall
3. The Atonement

These 3 events make our progression back to our Heavenly Father possible.  Without these three events, we cannot progress from Pre-Earth life to Mortality and eventually back to God.

So what does this have to do with the family?  Well, Sister Beck says it best.  

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have a theology of the family that is based on the Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement. The Creation of the earth provided a place where families could live. God created a man and a woman who were the two essential halves of a family. It was part of Heavenly Father’s plan that Adam and Eve be sealed and form an eternal family.

The Fall provided a way for the family to grow. Adam and Eve were family leaders who chose to have a mortal experience. The Fall made it possible for them to have sons and daughters.

The Atonement allows for the family to be sealed together eternally. It allows for families to have eternal growth and perfection. The plan of happiness, also called the plan of salvation, was a plan created for families. 

In The Family: A Proclamation to the World we read these truths about the family unit:

• "The family is ordained of God..."
• "...the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children."
• "...the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets."
• the family is the fundamental unit of society.

In today's world, the family is under attack. Also from Sister Beck,

...Ephesians 6:12: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Public policies are being made every day that are anti-family, and the definition of family is changing legally around the world. Pornography is rampant. For those who create pornography, their new target audience is young women. Parents are being portrayed as inept and out of touch. Antifamily media messages are everywhere. Youth are being desensitized about the need to form eternal families.

We see how this can happen when we read the words of Korihor, an anti-Christ: “Thus he did preach unto them, leading away the hearts of many, causing them to lift up their heads in their wickedness, yea, leading away many women, and also men, to commit whoredoms” (Alma 30:18). Satan knows that he will never have a body; he will never have a family. So he targets young women, who will create the bodies for the future generations.

Korihor was an anti-Christ. Anti-Christ is anti-family. Any doctrine or principle our youth hear from the world that is anti-family is also anti-Christ. It’s that clear.

So what is to be done and what direction do I take with my lesson this Sunday?  As you can probably tell thus far, I was really impressed with Sister Beck's address to seminary and institute of religion teachers entitled, Teaching the Doctrine of the Family.  In her address, she says that "Our role in this is to teach [the youth] so they don’t misunderstand. We must be very clear on key points of doctrine, which we find in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.”  This generation will be called upon to defend the doctrine of the family as never before. If they don’t know it, they can’t defend it. "

There was my answer as to what to teach this Sunday.  I need to find out what they are hearing from the world about the family and teach them the correct doctrine from the scriptures, the words of modern-day prophets and last but certainly not least, The Family Proclamation.

To prepare, I came up with some "world teachings" about the family that I have heard.  I made a "T" chart in my study journal and on one side I listed what "The World Says" and on the other, I listed what "We Say" (meaning The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).  I think it is also important to point out to my young women that "the world" can be friends, relatives, or people they might look up to.  It can be anyone who is teaching you something that is contrary to God's laws and commandments.

For my lesson, I will start by discussing how the family fits in with The Creation, The Fall, and The Atonement.  Then I will explain that Satan knows the importance of families and is currently working hard to distort not only the world's view of the family but more importantly, their (meaning my young women's) view of the family.

Then I will ask the girls to list things that they hear the world say about the family.  What does the world teach them about the family?  What changes they have noticed in family dynamics?  What do the TV shows, song lyrics, and movies they watch say about the way families should be?  What do they hear from their peers about what makes a family?

I will list their answers on individual sheets of paper and place them on the floor in a big "T" graph under "The World Says:" (I plan to make my "T" graph with blue painter's tape).  If some of the answers are similar in nature, I will add it to the same sheet of paper.

Once we've listed a bunch of these "worldly" teachings, I will split the girls and leaders into groups.  I will pass out copies of The Family: A Proclamation to the World (having each group focus on a separate paragraph), scripture references that are covered in the lesson outline - as well as some others I found appropriate, and quotes from modern day prophets regarding these topics.  

Before I give them some time to read through their reference material, I will explain that I would like them to look for what "We Say" in response to each idea the world is teaching them about the family.  I will ask them to write down the reference or paragraph number on a sheet of paper and what is being taught.  Then I will turn them loose to read and discuss in their groups.

When it looks like the discussion is winding down, I will go around the room, group by group, and ask them to come up and place their papers on the "We Say" side of the "T" graph - across from the worldly teaching they are clarifying with church doctrine. I will also ask them to explain how their reference discounts the world's teachings.  

So hopefully when we are all done, it will sort of look like my scripture journal above, just in a larger format.

I'm sure that my Young Women will come up with more awesome insights than I could because they are just that incredible.  And I'm not worried about not having a scripture reference to cover whatever it is that they come up with for worldly teachings because The Family: A Proclamation to the World will cover anything they can throw out there.

Also, before I end my lesson, I will point out that much of what we covered in the lesson can be counted toward Personal Progress Integrity Value Experience #7. 

List the issues, trends, and problems that weaken the family. Read the First Presidency message, “The Family: A Proclamation to the World”, and the section on family in For the Strength of Youth. Then research in the Church magazines the counsel of those whom we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators. Write in your journal your plan to strengthen your present family and the values and traditions you want to establish with your future family.

I also made a sheet that my girls can glue into their study notebooks to take notes if they chose to do that.

Any ideas or suggestion for me before my lesson on Sunday?

Update: Many have asked for pictures of my journal or a filled out T chart.  I've had them on the blog before, but found myself under scrutiny from readers (not nice comments) for it not being all-inclusive, so I pulled them down. I'm putting them back up so that people can use them, but please don't comment and tell me what they are missing.  Please understand that I never intended for these pages to contain everything, nor do I hope that they do.  My intention posting this was to give other YW leaders ideas, not give them a lesson they didn't have to prepare themselves.  My notes are not all-inclusive and are missing topics such as gay marriage, fornication, cohabitation, and I'm sure a myriad of other worldly teachings. 

Ask your girls for the issues they see in the world.  Don't give them the answers.  I know that if you wait for your girls to answer, and don't give them too much help, they will come up with the issues that they see and are faced with. It will give you great insight into their worlds. 

how do i receive the gift of the Holy Ghost? lesson handout

i made this handout to use for my lesson on sunday.  feel free to use it also.

here's mine, all printed up, glued into my study journal and partially filled out.

download from google docs at this link.

How Do I Receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost by Wendy H

lego stacking game

i had seen a couple of lego games on pinterest, but nothing that was printable or that was going to be long enough to keep my kids interested for more than 5 minutes.  so i made my own.

it's nothing super, but feel free to print it on cardstock and laminate if you choose.

all you need is one or two dice and some legos.  the person with the tallest stack when they reach "end" is the winner.

Lego Game by Wendy H

young women's "missed you" notes

came across this pin on pinterest the other day, but was super bummed to find out it wasn't anything printable :(

don't know who to give credit to...

so i made my own but i left off the "love the yw presidency" because i might want the girls in my class to sign it.

i also made various colors and a separate missed you note as well.

Missed by Wendy H

all you need to do is print this page on cardstock and cut out.  then use a corner rounder to round the corners.

if you want, use a hole punch to punch a couple of holes.  my hole punch is barely usable these days. :)  put a flower, sucker, or whatever you come up with through those holes.

so here's my version....

i'd love to see what you create with these and if you know where the original creative came from, let me know!

virtue experience #3 worksheet

for our mia maid activity this evening, we decided to work on personal progress - virtue experience #3.  to help guide the girls in our discussion, i made up this sheet for them to fill out.  we will still read the whole chapter, but this form will help guide our discussion.

it's two pages, so just print front and back on one sheet.

Virtue Value Experience 3 by Wendy Harwood

i know it doesn't include all of the verses that have questions, but some of the questions didn't really apply, in my opinion, so i didn't include them on this sheet.

i got the basic idea for this worksheet from here, but wanted to include more verses, so i tweaked it and made my own.

how can i make my prayers more meaningful?

here's another handout that i created for one of my young women lessons last month (come follow me, may 2013).  i should have posted it last month, but with trek and girl's camp, things got a little crazy!

Or download from Google Docs, at this link.

How Can I Make My Prayers More Meaningful by Wendy Harwood

 

what are the keys of the priesthood?

i've been teaching in young women's since april 2011.  finally started making my own handouts instead of just using ones i have found online.  they are not the most graphically pleasing, but they serve my needs.

i make them with margins to fit inside my study journals, so you just print and trim the edges.

here is the one i will be using for this sunday.

What Are the Keys of the Priesthood by Wendy Harwood