Monday, October 20, 2008

The Savior's Visit to the Nephites

I know I promised an update on my lesson, sorry it has taken so long. Life has been busy at our place the past few weeks.
In church, I have the wonderful opportunity to teach course 15. It took me a while to figure out the best way to teach them so they would actually pay attention. Yes teenagers are very similar to primary children, so it has worked out well since I served in primary for over two years before I was called to be their teacher.
Ok, enough rambaling. The lesson was on the the death of Christ, the destruction at the time, and the visit to the North Americas. I had read over the lesson Sunday night, trying to think about how to teach it. I was talking with My Man, and had the idea to recreate the destruction. When it popped into my head, all I could think of was, I NEED A FOG MACHINE!!!
I started asking people their input on how best to teach the lesson. I wanted this to be a lesson that the kids would remember for the rest of their lives, and hopefully help with gaining a testimony.
I origionally had the thought of having someone come in and pretend they were there at that time. As I was debating on who to ask, one of the boys in my classes name kept coming to my mind, so I called him and asked him if he would do the part. I gave him the chapters we would be talking about, told him kind of what I had planned, and then let him take it from their. He did a great job, the other kids in the class listened, which was huge, as they like to talk.
My Man, our Niece N and I had gone to the church Saturday night to test the fog machine and set the room up alittle.
Sunday, I had My Man leave early and start the fog machine, I had the kids meet me in the kitchen, were we started the lesson. I started with telling them that this lesson meant a lot to me and asked for their reverence. I read from the bible about the crucifixion of Christ, what he endured for each of us. I was trying to help them picture what it would be like if they were there at that time. We then left the kitchen and headed up the stairs, which My Man had turned out the lights so it was kind of dark. The kids then entered the fog filled room, which we had a picture of Christ on the cross, that they could see when they walked in, and had scattered the chairs, so they were not sitting right next to each other. We had a small lamp for some light, and I let them watch the part in the Testiments, which was the destruction part. When that was over, I told them that we had a visitor who would like to share his experience of being in the North America's when Christ appeared there. That is when I had the boy in my class do his part.
After he was done, I read some more scriptures of the experience and bore my testimony to them.
It was a great experience, I had a lot of fun planning for the lesson, and making it something that they would remember.
I am so grateful for the gospel in my life, and for how much I grow from the different callings. As most of you know, I was scared to death when I was asked to teach this class. I can now say how much I love each of the kids in my class, and am grateful for the opportunity
to teach them, and also to learn with them.

1 comments:

Kim

Way to go, Amy, those kids will never forget that, and they'll always remember you let that boy be the main spokesperson. Good job!