This lesson was inspired by a talk given in Sacrament meeting a few weeks ago. The speaker referenced the story of Nephi building a ship – not after the manner of men, but in the way that God would show him. Then, she said, we should build our families the same way. If we construct a family based on the principles of the gospel, it will carry us safely across the turbulent waters of life.
Age Range: Sunbeam, Star, CTR
Song: Nephi’s Courage (second verse if you’re only doing one)
Scripture: 1 Nephi 17: 8
And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto me, saying: Thou shalt construct a ship, after the manner which I shall show thee, that I may carry thy people across these waters.
Lesson: We read the story of Nephi building the ship in the illustrated Book of Mormon Stories. (If you don’t have the book, you can view it online here.) We talked about how Nephi did not know how to build a ship. He had never built a ship before, but by praying and listening to Heavenly Father he was able to build a good, strong ship to carry his family across the sea.
Then we talked about the fact that we didn’t need a ship, but to get us where we need to be (heaven) we need a strong FAMILY. To build a strong family, we can pray and follow the directions that Heavenly Father has given us. Then we moved on to the activity.
Activity: I made a puzzle shaped like a ship out of cardstock (posterboard would have worked better, since I could have just cut out one ship and cut it into pieces instead of hodgepodging) with four pieces. On each piece I wrote one of the four things we want to focus on to construct a strong family: Going to Church, Prayer, Scripture Study, and Family Home Evening.
We let the boys “build” the ship by assembling it on the wall with the help of some tape and talked about how we can build a family as strong as Nephi’s ship if we use the tools that Heavenly Father gives us. Then everyone got to color a picture about it, always a favorite.
Treat: We had cupcakes, but if you’re in the mood you can have Banana Boats.
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