General Conference FHE: The Articles of Faith

It's been awhile since I posted about FHE and devotionals.  For the past couple of months we have been focusing on Elder L. Tom Perry's talk called "The Doctrines and Principles Contained in the Articles of Faith." This talk was originally given in the Priesthood session.  When I read it I loved the promise he gives:

"I encourage you to use your bright minds to study and learn the Articles of Faith and the doctrines they teach. They are among the most important and certainly the most concise statements of doctrine in the Church. If you will use them as a guide to direct your studies of the gospel of Jesus Christ, you will find yourself prepared to declare your witness of the restored truth to the world. You will be able to declare in simple, straightforward, and profound ways the core beliefs you hold dear as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

With the focus lately on hastening the work of salvation and missionary work, I really want our family to feel more prepared and more confident about seizing missionary opportunities when they come our way.  Years ago while I was at a conference in Minnesota for grad school I had the opportunity to have dinner with another woman attending the conference.  As the conversation turned to religion and our beliefs, I was able to use the Articles of Faith to explain to my new friend what I believed as a member of the LDS Church.  She expressed that she admired how well I knew what we believed and how I could explain it.  It was a powerful experience for both of us.  As I read this talk I was reminded of that experience.  I want to arm our children with that same ability to talk about what we believe when moments like that arise for them.

Thus, after reading this talk we have been working on the Articles of Faith (A of F) one at a time as part of our morning devotional.  The first day we read through the new A of F.  We talk about words that may be unfamiliar and give each of the kids a chance to explain in their own words what it means.  Then we assign homework for the next day.  On day two for the new A of F, each family member shares a verse or story from the scriptures that illustrates what the A of F teaches.  We have brought in Conference talks, other quotes from General Authorities, and even videos from the lds.org website (I love the video about Christ healing the blind man, which I used for A of F #6).  This exercise gets the kids thinking about the application of the A of F and encourages them to think about stories and verses they are familiar with.  It also gives them a chance to use their "scripture sleuth" skills of noticing footnotes, looking up key words, and finding related references.  On day three we review the A of F and take turns trying to pass it off from memory.

Some of the Articles of Faith were very familiar (because of previous efforts to memorize them) and could be passed off right away.  Others--like #5--took more time.  We found the songs for them online at lds.org and have used those as a way to help memorize them as well.  Once everyone has memorized the A of F and can explain in their own words what it means, we move on to the next one.  Sometimes that's three days, sometimes it's a week.

We are on #8 now, and the more we add the more we find that review is helpful.  One morning (after finishing #6) we passed around a dice and whatever number you rolled was the A of F you had to recite.  We also had a trivia morning with questions like, "Which one references healing?" and "Which one(s) reference ordinances?"  Some of them overlap, and it is fun to make those connections.

I am working on a Jeopardy-type game for FHE that has to do with the A of F once we are done with all of them.  Let me know if you want a copy of the questions.  I love the A of F memorization cards here that give the first letter of each word to help with memorizing them.  These are great for car time or sacrament meeting.

Every couple of weeks we have referenced back to Elder Perry's talk as the reason for WHY we are memorizing the Articles of Faith.  It has been fun to focus on these, but the tandem message I want them to remember along with the As of F is that when a prophet of God challenges us to do something, we need to do it. I know that the Lord blesses us in so many ways when we are doing our best in the small and simple ways to follow the counsel we have been given by our living prophets.