Lesson #2: Our Life in Heaven
Plan of Salvation Activity: You will need 5 feet of string (ribbon, rope, yarn, whatever) for this activity. You will also need baby, child, teen, and adult pictures of you or, if you are too lazy to dig those out, you could use these generic ones. (Note that that site has pages and pages of clip art of people to choose from, many with a lovely early 80s flair.) You will also need four pieces of paper (roughly notecard size), each with one of the following words on it: premortal, birth, death, postmortal. You will also need a small piece of a plastic bag or a piece of plastic wrap. Cut the plastic so that it has the same outline as the adult body from your picture.
Stretch out the string and place the baby picture at about the one foot mark. Explain that everyone begins life as a baby. Then put the child picture to the right of the baby, then the teen, then the adult. (My kids have an endless appetite for funny stories about when I was a kid; this is a good time to share some of those.) End so that the adult picture is about one foot from the right end of the string. Explain that you have a spirit (the clear plastic, which you should place over the adult picture). Explain that before you were a child you were born and put the paper that says ‘birth’ to the left of the baby picture.
Then put the premortal paper to the left of the ‘birth’ paper. Put the plastic in the premortal existence and explain that our spirits existed then, even though our bodies did not. Discuss what we know about premortal life and what we don’t know. (Details in the Gospel Fundamentals manual if you aren’t comfortable winging this.) Talk about the choices that we made in the premortal life and our decision to come to earth.
Then put the death paper to the right of the adult picture. Explain that we all will die and then put down the postmortal paper and then the spirit (without the body) in the postmortal area and talk about what we know and what we don’t know about postmortal life.
Another Plan of Salvation Activity: This activity is better suited for older children than the above. Print out the lyrics to “O My Father” for each family member. (Here’s one source for that.) Sing the song. (Music here.) Explain that the first stanza refers to the premortal life and discuss it. (You’ll probably need to explain some words and phrases.) The second and third stanzas refer to mortal life and some of the things that we learn during it. The fourth stanza refers to postmortal life. A wonderful addition to this activity would be to use these illustrations.
Oops. I forgot the missionary moment.
Q: So Mormons believe that people existed before birth? How do you know that?
A hundred years ago when YW was still Mutual, I was in a three-act play called “Rented Christmas” — some lonely guy wanted a real old-fashioned Christmas and borrowed some orphans and their caretaker to pretend to be his family for Christmas, with a tree and carols and every sentimental thing imaginable. Of course they all end up as a real family and live happily ever after.
Julie makes me want to rent some kids somewhere so I can try out these Family Home Evening lessons. (The happily-ever-after could be strawberry shortcake or somethin’ like that.)
ardis, our family hosts large fhe’s during the summer (we did it year-round in hawai’i, but that’s less practical here). we do them potluck style, eat dinner, have a simple lesson, and play some sort of group game. we invite the ward mission leader, a few of the stronger members of the ward, the elders, and then anyone else who the others invite. the elders bring investigators, some inactive families sometimes come, and so on. it’s all very light and easy, but everyone has a blast. the kids can pay attention during lessons like julie is laying out and then they get to run around together.
so, don’t rent kids! throw a group fhe, use julie’s lesson, and bask in the luv!
I don’t know any kids, makakona. In our stake, once your babies turn three you’re bounced out of the regular wards and into the one ward in the stake with families. I really would have better luck finding a shop with some used children to rent than trying to throw a group FHE that included kids. But when I read techniques like Julie’s, I think it would be worth trying. Where are those yellow pages …
Ardis–I’d offer mine but fear you’d not only be the superior teacher but also that I’d fail CPS’s inquiries about how that 19.95 ended up in my wallet.
Julie, thanks for the second great lesson.
Thank you so much! As before, I know this will be a great lesson and keep the attention of all my young ones!
We didn’t have much time last night because of a crazy schedule, so were not able to do this lesson. Dang – I think the kids would have enjoyed it. (We opted for reading a story from The Friend. Boring, but it worked.) I look forward to any future installments in this series. Thanks.