Learning and Living the Gospel

The ideas in green were brainstormed to help get our creative juices flowing.  All other ideas have actually been implemented by different activity day groups.  Please contribute your ideas by clicking on "comments" at the bottom of the page.  

·         • Explain how taking the sacrament helps you renew your baptismal covenant. In a family home evening, teach others about things we can do to remain faithful.

Invite the teacher’s quorum advisor and presidency to show the group where the sacrament supplies are kept and to talk about their duty to prepare the sacrament. 

Make family home evening kits about the sacrament. 

Play a matching game about the sacrament.  Have girls prepare a game of their own to share with their family.


Our activity day group learned to do simple and fun object lessons to illustrate repentance, faith, baptism, and the Holy Ghost.  We tied these principles and ordinances in to taking the sacrament.  We sent them home with a paper to help them do these fun activities in a family home evening with their family.  Print off what we did here.

·         • Give a family home evening lesson on Joseph Smith’s First Vision (see Joseph Smith—History 1:1–20). Discuss how Heavenly Father answers our sincere prayers.

Make flannel board figures of the first vision and prepare to tell the story at a family home evening. 

Our activity days group went on a short hike where we learned about Joseph Smith along the way.  We chose a beautiful park and hid objects in various locations around the park.  Each object represented an important part of the restoration. Then we hiked with the girls to the locations where they would find the object and we would discuss what it represented.  We used objects such as the following:   A picture of Christ--discuss the fact that Christ established his true church while he was on the earth.  A flashlight that doesn't work--discuss the apostasy and the fact that the true church was no longer on the earth and the earth was in spiritual darkness.  A bag of trail mix for the girls to snack on--the many ingredients in the trail mix represent the many churches on the earth when Joseph Smith was a boy, but none of them were Christ's true church.  A bible--Joseph Smith didn't know what church to join.  He was reading the Bible one day.  Read the same verses he read (James 1:5) also read in Joseph Smith History how he felt after reading that verse (JS-H 1:12).  We ended our hike in a stand of trees where we sang "How Lovely was the Morning," Joseph Smith's account of the first vision and bore our testimonies of its truthfulness.  We encouraged the girls to teach their family about Joseph Smith's first vision and gave them a paper to help them teach.

·         • Mark these verses about the Holy Ghost in your scriptures: John 14:6–17, 2 Nephi 32:5, and Moroni 10:5. Discuss ways the Holy Ghost helps you.

Discuss ways that the Holy Ghost can help you and make a small kit containing items that represent the different functions of the Holy Ghost.  (comforts, guides, testifies of truth, etc)

Have the girls practice following the still small voice by making an outdoor obstacle course and taking turns following the course blindfolded.  Whisper directions to the blindfolded girl.  You may want to have others making distracting noises.   

·         • Read a recent conference address given by the prophet. Decide what you can do to follow the prophet, and do it.

Show a video clip of a conference address given by the prophet.  Have girls look for counsel he gives. 

Make a wall hanging of the prophet’s counsel to display at home.

Give each girl a copy of a recent conference address given by the prophet and a pencil or highlighter.  Have girls take turns reading paragraphs of the address.  Ask the girls to highlight counsel he gives as they read. 

Carry out a service project that follows counsel given by the prophet.

•      Give an opening and a closing prayer in family home evening or at Primary. Share your feelings about how prayer protects us and helps us to stay close to Heavenly Father and the Savior.

Gather round a camp fire or in a darkened room with each girl shining a flashlight.  After some active songs and activities, sing “a child’s prayer” or other reverent prayer song.  Review Faith in God Basic Requirements (p. __)  Discuss the importance of praying daily.  Give each girl an opportunity to relate a time when her prayer was answered and to share her feelings about prayer.  Eat s’mores.

 Make an activity day prayer chart that records each time a girl gives a prayer in activity days.

Make a prayer rock, pillow case, or sign displaying the words: “Don’t forget to pray”    

·         • Tell a story from the Book of Mormon that teaches about faith in Jesus Christ. Share your testimony of the Savior.

Make simple hand puppets that tell Book of Mormon stories teaching faith in Jesus Christ.  Take turns telling the stories.  Bear your testimony.  Encourage them to use the puppets to tell the story to some one at home.  Remind them to bear their testimonies of the savior. 

Brainstorm and Review stories from the Book of Mormon that teach about faith in Jesus Christ.  Play “scriptionary” by having a girl depict one of the reviewed stories by illustrating it on the chalk board.  The first girl to guess the story gets to draw next.  Or, instead of drawing, play the game “charade style”

·         • Read D&C 89. Discuss how Heavenly Father blesses us when we faithfully live the Word of Wisdom. Help plan and conduct an activity to teach the Word of Wisdom to others.

Learn how to make a healthy snack with simple ingredients.  Talk about the Word of Wisdom while eating the snack.   Encourage them to make the snack at home and share it with a family member.  Remind them to teach the family member what they learned about the Word of Wisdom.

Discuss the Word of Wisdom.  Provide the group with ads or magazines containing pictures of food.  Have them find  and cut out examples of foods that follow and don’t follow the Word of Wisdom.  Have them trade pictures and sort them according to good and bad food.  Encourage them to take their pictures home and use them to teach a family member about the word of wisdom.  

·         • Prepare a pedigree chart with your name and your parents’ and grandparents’ names. Prepare a family group record for your family and share a family story. Discuss how performing temple work blesses families.

Have girls come to activity days with the names of their parents and grandparents.  Have them fill out family group records.  Have them color and fill out a more decorative family tree to display in their home

Have a pajama-story time.  Encourage the girls to come to activity day in their pajamas.  Ask them each to be prepared with a short family story or fact that they can share without reading.  Share stories, eat snacks, and play “temple blessing bingo” with bingo cards that enumerate blessings families can receive from temple work (peace, unity, eternal life, forever families, testimonies, example of Christ, service, etc)

 One ward in our stake took a trip to the cemetery and had the girls find the grave stone with the oldest date and record the info and the newest date and record the info.  They also had the girls look for family names and record the info so that they can go home and see if they are related.  They also take home pedigree charts to fill out.  The girls loved this activity!

·         • Learn to sing “Choose the Right” (Hymns,no. 239). Explain what agency is and what it means to be responsible for your choices. Discuss how making good choices has helped you develop greater faith.

Divide the girls into groups.  Give each group paper and one section of the song.  Have them illustrate and color pictures that represent their segment.  Have each group teach their segment of the song to the other girls.  Sing the song as a class.

Prepare a “faith walk.”  On note cards, write situations that the girls may be faced with in their lives.  Place the cards in different rooms of the church building. Have the girls walk from place to place, stopping at the cards to read a situation and discuss  appropriate choices.  Discuss how making the appropriate choices build faith.  When you reach your destination, have the girls share personal experiences where they made a good choice.  You may also want to play a game, sing a song, and/or eat a snack.

Two days ago, we did an activity to help the girls choose the right as they start the new school year.  You can start this activity by learning to sing "Choose the Right," and taking a movie of the girls singing it.  Next, we divided them into small groups and gave each group a bag of silly dress-ups.  We also gave each group a situation to resolve and then act out, demonstrating how to choose the right.  I took a movie of the girls as each group acted out their scenario.  They had a blast and wanted to do it again with new situations, so we did.  I hope to show the movie later, maybe at a recognition "movie night" activity.

         • Plan and complete your own activity that will help you learn and live the gospel (write the activity below).

Have a tour of the church house.  In each room discuss who meets there and a bit about their organization and how we can support them (young women, aaronic priesthood, Relief Society, Elder’s quorum, primary,etc).

Walk around the temple grounds.  Sit and talk about temple marriage.

Scripture scavenger hunt.  Meet at a local park.  Give each girl a set of scriptures.  Let them hurry to find where different scripture helps are located (topical guide, bible dictionary, index, maps, footnotes etc).  When each help is found, have all girls turn there and discuss how that particular help can be used to enhance scripture study.   Between finding scripture helps, have them race to find an object in nature (a feather, a flower, a bug, etc).  Discuss how we can find evidences of God’s love in nature and in the scriptures.

We hope these ideas get your own creative juices flowing!  Remember to use your own talents and abilities to magnify your calling!