Lesson for October 12, 2014

Today our lesson was given by Megan Miller on “Proclaiming the Gospel to the World.” She shared a clip from Elder Bednar’s conference talk about his two sons, one of which was injured and then treated kindly by his brother, who soaped up and scrubbed the injury and covered the younger brother with bandaids. The injured brother gathered up ointment and bandages and shared with his friends. The older brother loved his brother and wanted to care for him and then the little one wanted to share with those he loved. In order to share the gospel, we need a testimony, we need to be willing to serve, we need to listen to see where there is trouble or need. It is important to have good relationships with people so they know we like them and they can be comfortable with them. Sometimes people are curious about the gospel and are not ready to be baptized. Sometimes the timing has to be right. The D&C says that before we preach the word, we must learn the word first. As we are with our children and teaching them, we are involved in missionary work. Then, not only are we doing missionary work with our children, they can share the gospel, too. We can decorate our homes so they reflect our involvement with the gospel. In 1 Nephi 11:16-17 it is about the angel telling Nephi about the tree of life. The angel asks a question and Nephi doesn’t know, but he says he does know that God loves His children. He testifies first about what he does know and then says he doesn’t know the answer. So we might not know everything, but we are willing to find out the answer. Our children and friends need to know that there may be a lack of knowledge and there may be disagreement, but that’s all right. You can still love each other and you can find things out. We don’t always see the fruits of our labors, but we can help people take the first steps. Sue Ann Harding tried to share the gospel with a woman who was experiencing problems. The woman did not accept, but she was still friendly. We ran out of time before we could read from the manual, but we had a really good lesson with people who shared.