Apostasy & Restoration Cups Lesson

In opening exercises of Young Women’s, Sis. Alldredge was talking to us about the value for this month, which is divine nature.  She gave everyone a piece of paper and told us to write down one word, just one, that describes us.  Then she had everyone go around the room and say, “My name is ________” and instead of saying our real name we said the word on our paper.  Some of them were funny, some were silly, and some were serious.  Just in case you’re curious, I said, “My name is FooFoo” (as in FooFoo cutsie type stuff).  When everyone had shared their “name,” Sis. Alldredge just said how wonderful it is that we’re all so different and individual, but at the same time we’re also all daughters of God.  It was a really powerful point and made an impact on me.

My lesson was on the Apostasy (Dark Ages) & the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  I’ve had a long time to plan for this lesson, and I had so many different ideas floating in my head.  I was able to finally pull it all together by doing a timeline of the 7 dispensations (Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Joseph Smith).  I also added in some major events to our big timeline of when the Savior was alive.  I again added more events to our timeline during Joseph Smith’s period (like when the priesthood was restored, the Book of Mormon was translated, etc).  At the very end of this big huge timeline that took up 3 chalk boards, I wrote 3 lines with question marks under them.  For those marks I wrote “the day you are baptized, the day you go through the temple and get your own endowments, and the day you are sealed to your spouse for eternity.”

I always like to try to have a handout and treat to go along w/ my lessons if I can.  So, I found these nerd ropes for the treat and told them that each little piece of candy on this rope could be considered an event since the beginning of time that has gotten them to where they are today.  I told them that we tend to take for granted all the incredible blessings we have as members of the Church.  Hopefully this made sense to them and helped them realize that the choices they make are their own personal continuation of the history that has come before them.

At the end of the lesson, we had a few minutes so I did this object lesson from the Chocolate On My Cranium blog with my girls.  We used to use something very similar to this on my mission a lot, and it’s very impactful.  Although, I’ve never seen a list before of how the original 12 Apostles died, so this was fascinating to me.

After church, we went over to Mom & Dad’s house to eat some lunch.  We hurried and made a sandwich, scarfed it down, and then went over to Nick’s ward to see Billy get the gift of the Holy Ghost.  We left right after that and went back to Mom & Dad’s house to rest for a little bit.  Then we went home so our home teachers could come over at 5:30.  Mom came at 6:30 to watch Autumn for me while I went to a single adult fireside.

I was in charge of refreshments, so I had made 2 pans of Tropical Delight Cake.  The fireside was about a few General Conference talks, and it was really good.  We had a great turn out.  I’m glad the 2 cakes were enough for all those people.  It was a busy Sunday, and the work week always seem to come too son.