Lesson 4: The Pioneer Heritage of Faith and Sacrifice

This activity kind of has a couple of small variations.  Having said that, I hope that as I post more and more of these activities you are finding some themes and seeing other ways of doing these activities (or others of your own creation).  This is a case where I will share a couple of ways to introduce the activity (the variations). Also, please note that although this activity begins with a quote from the introduction, there is no reason that this activity must come at the beginning; use it where it makes the most sense.

The Activity:

1. Begin by reading the last paragraph in the introduction section. ("When President Hinckley spoke of the early pioneers . . . often in his own family").
2. Focus on the idea that the lives of the pioneers should "become a compelling motivation for us all" (p. 82).
3. Then, divide the class members into three groups and tell them that each group is going to consider how one aspect of the pioneer experience President Hinckley talks about can be motivating for us, i.e. how can we apply the lessons learned from their lives in our own lives.
4. Then assign each group one of the following topics/sections from the manual:  Faith (section 1); Vision (section 2); Saving Others (section 3).
5. Have the groups read each section (unless you have some sort of super class where many members have read the chapter already :)  ) and talk about the lessons they can learn from the pioneers and how those lessons could be applied in their own lives.
6. After a bit of time (5-10 minutes?), ask the groups to come back and share what they talked about with the rest of the class.
7. Encourage the listeners to contribute other insights they may have to what the other groups are saying.
8. End by giving each member an index card (or similar paper) and ask them to jot down what they are going to do to be more like a pioneer in their own lives-- something that they have heard in class today or something that the Spirit has whispered to them to do.  Tell, them to keep the paper as a reminder of what they felt impressed to do.

Using this activity:

As I mentioned earlier there are may ways to vary this activity.  The most obvious way to do this involves a different introduction and/or conclusion.  Later in the chapter, President Hinckley talks about building on the foundation of the pioneers.  You could use one of these quotes to set the stage for this activity or to tie it all together at the end-- or both.  In any case, this lesson is valuable because it asks the class members to apply the lesson.

Also, I want to talk about asking the students to write down their impressions and/or goals.  To begin with, our classes should be revelatory experiences.  If not, we are underselling what we should be doing.  Our students should receive revelation in our classes about their lives-- at least we should be doing all we can to facilitate this revelation.  There may be reasons they do not receive revelation, but let's not be that reason.  Second, Elder Scott has taught us that as we write down and keep the revelations we receive through the Spirit we demonstrate that we value what the Lord gives us and He will give us more.  So, I like to pass out index cards or other things (or just mention to them that they should write them down) so that class members can apply this counsel.  Often, this is important because as we participate in a lesson (which this activity fosters), the Spirit will speak to us, and often He tells us about things not necessarily connected to the lesson but about which we were wondering (as per Pres. Eyring's teaching).  We must treasure that communication because it is specifically for us.