My mom posted a couple weeks ago about how she had an ah-hah moment during Primary that day. I had mine today. I need to give a little bit of background here. Our Primary theme this year is My Eternal Family. My dilemma in teaching this this year was that in my tiny primary -- only 9 active families represented in the primary -- there are only about 3 or 4 who have the ideal family with active member parents married in the temple and kids BIC, etc. I'm not not sure about this, but I'm pretty sure that's an interesting ratio compared to larger primaries. Anyway, so what we've been concentrating on is the pattern of the family that we are to follow. I taught a lesson using the analogy from Elder Holland HERE. I used my own examples of making dresses using patterns and how hard it was with the pattern, and the dresses are no where near perfect, but they would have turned out much worse if I didn't use a pattern. Heavenly Father has given us patterns and we find them in the scriptures, in the Church magazines & General Conference, and our main pattern this year is the Family Proclamation. So every Sharing Time that I teach I try to point out the pattern we are being taught.
Admittedly, I didn't have a lot of time to prepare this lesson. I was filling in for my counselor whose mother died last weekend. I didn't read through my scripture passages too closely because I thought I knew the stories and the lessons in there.
Today I taught about the responsibility of fathers. I had several pairs of Dallin's shoes and we talked about all the different responsibilities he and other fathers fulfill wearing their various shoes. We also read parts of 1 Nephi 1 & 2 and talked about Lehi as a father. With Jr. Primary we talked about how fathers are the leaders of the family, and that they teach the family, provide for, and protect the family. Pretty basic stuff. It wasn't until I was teaching Sr. Primary that I got my ah-hah moment. I realized the obvious pattern. When Jeruselam was in danger of destruction Lehi went and prayed for his people & his family -- his stewardship -- then he received instruction for his family, and then he lead his family. When Nephi's bow broke and he had to make a new one he went to his father -- the patriarch of the family -- and Lehi again prayed, received instruction, and then led (or told) Nephi where to find food.
So the pattern is: 1. righteous fathers pray for their families, 2. they receive instruction, 3. they lead their families. It was awesome. And one of those, "Duh, why didn't I figure this out before?" moments.
1 comment:
neat :)
The same basic lesson was given in the Dubuque Ward Primary this Sunday. I was subbing as the pianist and got to watch the first part of the lessons.. there were always some funny answers about what the dads do in the shoes, but a very neat analogy. :)
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