“May we choose to build up within ourselves a great and powerful faith which will be our most effective defense against the designs of the adversary—a real faith, the kind of faith which will sustain us and will bolster our desire to choose the right. Without such faith, we go nowhere. With it, we can accomplish our goals.” -Thomas S. Monson (“Choices” from April 2016 General Conference)

Ways to Talk About it

Look at these ideas to see which ones would work for your family. Depending on your group use one idea or a few together and of course add your own ideas too.

• Share and discuss the quote from President Monson. (Read it, watch the clip from his talk, or show the meme.)
• Set out blocks or recyclables (cereal, tissue and other boxes) and let everyone build a tower as tall as possible. Talk about how building faith is like building a tower, you build it a piece at a time or line upon line.
• Discuss what things (pieces) help build our faith.
  • For older kids: Have everyone look up scriptures about faith. See what you find out about building faith and what blessings come from having faith. This is a great chance to help kids learn to share what they learn from the scriptures. You could give everyone a scripture to look up or even better have them search for scriptures about faith. Help them learn how to find things in the scriptures by using the topical guide and search features.
  • For younger kids: Come up with a few scriptures about faith or a few things that help us build faith. (Praying, Reading Scriptures, Keeping Commandments, Going to Church, Family Home Evening, etc.) Write the words or scripture references on small pieces of paper and attach them to blocks. Hide the blocks around the room beforehand. When the kids find the blocks look up the scriptures and discuss how those things can help make our faith tall and great like the tower. Use the blocks to build a tower.
  • Other people who have faith and who care about us can help us build our faith. To discuss this point, read or tell the story from General Conference about Elder Stanfill needing more light while riding bikes through a long tunnel. Just as he needed the light of his friends to help him through the tunnel, the light, or faith, of those around us (family, friends, ward family) can strengthen our faith. Talk about how the faith of others can help us on a daily basis? How can it help us when our own faith doesn’t seem strong enough? You could also discuss the opposite of this, how somepeople test and drain our faith.

“Those who truly love us can help us build our faith.” -Elder Stanfill, October 2015 General Conference

• Read Helaman 5:12 and discuss how to build our foundation (our faith in Christ) or discuss the protection we receive when we have the foundation mentioned in the scripture.
• Have a nerf gun fight (or it could be a pillow fight, water balloon fight, or even a sock ball fight while folding laundry). Make comments about everyone’s efforts to defend themselves. Afterward (now or a different day) discuss those defense strategies. Relate it to President Monson’s quote and discuss how faith protects us and what it protects us from.
• Plant flowers or a garden. Discuss the needs of plants (water, sun, soil, weeding, patience).  Discuss how nourishing faith and testimony is similar to caring for a garden. (This could be used as a goal or project for older primary children or youth.) 
• Choose a goal or read scriptures from the Faith section in the Personal Progress book. Everyone could set a goal to increase faith, not just young women.

Resources

• Scriptures
  • JST, James 2:15 – show faith through works
  • Moroni 10:20 – faith, hope, and charity
  • Ether 12:6 – things hoped for and not seen (Faith is trusting God)
  • 1 Nephi 3:7 – believing that God prepares a way for us
  • Alma 32:28-36 – when talking about Alma’s experiment remember that the seed represents Christ. That means at any given time the seed could represent any principle of the gospel of which someone wants to increase their testimony. Faith is like the soil used to nourish the seed. And as we nourish the seed (study and learn about the principle and show faith by practicing the principle), our testimony of it will grow little by little, line upon line.
  • 2 Nephi 28:30 – line upon line
• Songs
  • Faith (Children’s Songbook, 96) – Faith grows through obedience.
  • I’ll Follow Him in Faith
  • How Firm a Foundation (Hymns, 85)

Related Ideas

• Build on this lesson by preparing a lesson about The Faith of Joseph Smith for next week. (It could fulfill the requirement in Faith in God, 2nd bullet point, for older primary children).

As always, TAKE & TWEAK these ideas to fit your needs.

Alma’s great sermon on the Atonement of Jesus Christ is a great chapter to read during this Easter week. Expand your study of Alma 7 (especially verses 11-13) through experiences in the Personal Progress or Duty to God books.

For Personal Progress:
Jesus Christ loves you. He knows you and all of your struggles. You are part of the reason He went through all of the pain of the Atonement.
↪Try Faith 5

General Conference is a great time for family to gather together and to learn about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Sure, it can be long, especially for kids but it can be an experience they look forward to. Having activities for kids to do can be a great way to help kids participate in General Conference. And many activities for kids can encourage them to listen and learn from the talks  instead of just keeping them busy and quiet.

Here are some ideas:

Apostle Chairs

Print this sheet (on one sheet or as a large poster). Be sure to print the Apostle Pictures too. When any of the 1st Presidency or Quorum of the Twelve speak, find their picture and glue it onto the chair with their name. (Or print the pictures on sticker paper.) You could use this as a way to organize activities during conference by having prepared activities labeled 1-15. When you put a picture on a chair do the activity labeled with the number on the chair. Instead, you could use these Apostle Cards to put up on the wall or take off the wall as they speak.

Apostle Pictures

A picture of each of the members of the 1st Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. Print them on regular paper or sticker paper and use them with the Apostle Chairs.

Color the Speaker (Full Sheet or Quarter Page Booklet)

Color clothes and hair to look like the speaker. Draw or write in the speech bubble what is said in the talk. Print one or multiple copies. For a version of this activity with the speech bubble and a place to glue a picture of the speaker (instead of coloring the speaker) click here.

I Spy Colors

Look for things during conference that are red, yellow, blue, etc. Write or draw the items in the colored box.

Conference ABCs (Full Sheet or Half Sheet)

Write words said in a talk that start with each letter of the alphabet.

Apostle Names

Match the person speaking to the picture on each writing page. Write their name while they are speaking and draw a picture of what they talk about. A great activity for kids learning how to write.

Conference Sculpting

Build things from playdough that go with a certain talk.

Lollipop Listening

Suck on a lollipop during a talk. Can you make the lollipop last for the whole talk?

Picture Wall

Use about 7 gospel pictures you have or print some from lds.org. (Pictures of Jesus, Joseph Smith, Baptism, Prayer, Temple, Sacrament, Scriptures, Family or Missionaries would work well.) Hang the pictures on the wall before Conference. Kids can listen for the speakers to talk about the things in the pictures. When they do, kids can go touch the picture then sit back down and listen for another one of the words.

I Spy Jar

A great activity for very young kids. To make an “I Spy Jar” fill an empty water bottle or similar bottle with rice or wheat. Add about 6-10 small objects or beads. (Add some rice to the bottle and put in a few objects. Then add more rice and more objects. Repeat.) Leave about 1” of space at the top of the jar. Secure the lid with hot glue or tape. Kids can shake the bottle to look for the different objects inside.

Word Snacks

Set out a bowl of a variety of snacks. Label each snack with a word or picture that might be mentioned during conference. When one of those words is mentioned you can have one of those snacks.

Other Ideas For Young Children

Make your own bingo board or print some from lds.org. There are other conference activities there too. Use a variety of markers for your bingo board, like stickers, stampers, skittles, m&ms, smarties, jelly beans, fruit sacks, buttons, coins or bingo paint daubers. You can play more than once.

Scripture story sticker scenes are a fun activity for conference. Find some here. Sometimes they aren’t great for very young children because the stickers are very detailed and can rip easily when being peeled off the sheet.
Happy Conference to You!