FHE - Faith is like a little seed

Faith....I thought it was about time we taught a lesson on what our Big Baby's name means

'I know my Father Lives' was our opening song to get the ball rolling.

What is Faith? To believe in something that you can't see. You know it's true even when you can't see it, like the Holy Ghost, Heavenly Father, the story of Joseph Smith's vision, families can be together forever

Our story for teaching about Faith was 'The Brother of Jared and the Finger of the Lord'. Who better to teach us about Faith than the man who had never before shown so much faith in the Lord.

I put out the pictures for the story and read along while the girls picked out the pictures to match what I was saying. It was kind of a timeline/kids version of the story.....

-The Brother of Jared was a leader of the Jaredites. They lived on the earth 2200 years before Christ

-The were wicked and thought if they built a big tower, they could get up to Heaven

-The Lord was not pleased and gave the wicked people different languages so they couldn't understand eachother and he scatter them all over the land

-Jared and his brother were righteous and wanted their family and friends to understand eachother so he prayed to the Lord

-The Lord granted him his request and told them to gather 2 of every available animal, and seeds and he would direct them to a new land

-The Brother of Jared obeyed the Lord and they gather flocks and seeds and also deseret (honey bees) and they travelled to Nimrod.

-The Lord spoke to the Brother of Jared in a cloud. He heard the voice of the Lord but did not see him.

-The Jaredites camped for 4 years and during this time they forgot to pray

-The Lord chastized him for not praying and commanded them to build boats (called barges). They needed to have a door that would shut tight to make them air-tight.

-The brother of Jared directed the building of 8 barges. He worried that the people wouldn't be able to breathe so he prayed to the Lord. The Lord gave instructions on our to add a door at the top and bottom for air

-Whenever there was a problem to be solved, he prayed to the Lord for help

-In mighty faith he asked the Lord how there would be light in the barges. The Lord allowed him to solve this problem himself

-The brother of Jared went to a tall mountain and made sixteen small, white stones out of the rock

-He prayed unto the Lord again and told the Lord that he knew that if He would touch the stones with his finger they would shine and be a source of light on their travels on the sea

-The Lord did exactly that. He stretched out his hand and touched each stone one at a time until they were each glowing

-The brother of Jared was astonished and fell to the earth because he didn't expect to see a finger of flesh and blood

-The Lord explained to the Brother of Jared that because he had such exceptional Faith, he was able to see the finger of the Lord. Then he showed himself to the Brother of Jared in the body of his Spirit, which is in the exact image of His physical body

-The Lord has never before appeared to a man, because never had a man showed so much faith in the Lord as the Brother of Jared showed that day

Then we talked about how Faith is like a little seed (Song: Faith), and we can nurture it just like we'd give a plant seed water, sunlight, food, space, love.  

I had a 'strong' tree and a 'weak' tree and we had to choose the leaves that went on each one

Strong

I shared my testimony at church

I paid my tithing

I was honest when I broke something

I read my scriptures

I said my prayers before bed time

I asked for a blessing when I felt sick

Weak

I went straight to sleep instead of saying prayers first

I spent my tithing money

I lied to my Dad

I went to a party instead of church

I didn't share my testimony

I listened to music with bad words

Refreshments....16 'white' stones

Sometimes I wonder about the strength of my Faith and I think no matter how strong it is, there's always work to be done. So it was a good reminder to have those leaves and when I looked over them I did a little mental check on how I'm doing with 'feeding my Faith'. It's a constant process of nourishing, building, strengthening..... As with most things in life, it takes effort, but my goodness it's worth it. I can't imagine living without Faith....in more ways than one!