Our Stake (Arlington Texas) is studying one scripture a month this year. To help families to integrate the scripture into their homes in meaningful ways, for each scripture we will share the following:
- free printables of the scripture for display in the home
- the accompanying challenge
- family home evening lessons for all types of families
- ideas for memorizing the scripture
The scripture for June is Mosiah 2:22.
“And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you.”
Printables
You can print this section of the verse by clicking here or on the image itself.
There is a perfect MormonAd for this scripture that can be printed by clicking here or on the image itself below.
We love this series of different layouts of these free printables that are an excerpt from the hymn “Count Your Many Blessings” that is shared by LostBumblebee.
Challenge
The accompanying challenge is to ponder and identify ways that the Lord has “prospered” you and give thanks in prayers (for those blessing specifically).
Ideas for this challenge are included in the Family Home Evening ideas below.
Family Home Evening Ideas
There are three possible ways to approach this month’s Family Home Evening topic:
- Addressing the Challenge
- From the perspective of studying King Benjamin’s speech
- Considering blessings/prosperity as gifts of God
In the ideas below, we share all of these approaches. Please select any (or all!) that fit your needs best.
With Children
The Challenge
Preparation:
- Purchase a 100 Grand candy bar for each member of the family.
- Gather paper and pencils and crayonsSong: Learn and/or sing “For Thy Bounteous Blessings” (Children’s Songbook, 21)
Lesson:
Read Mosiah 2:22.
Show the 100 Grand bars. Explain that you will be making a list of 100 ways in which the Lord has blessed your family.
On the paper, brainstorm the list together as a family. Give children their own paper and crayons to draw a picture of a blessing they can think of and then add their idea to the list.
Once you arrive at 100 ways (if you find it hard to get to 100, start naming people you know and love), explain that you are going to say a special prayer of gratitude for those things. You may have one person say the prayer, or you may have each member of the family take turns expressing gratitude.
Eat the 100 Grand bars for the treat and post the list in a spot where everyone can see it for the month. Remember to refer to the list during family prayer all month.
King Benjamin
This FHE lesson from YourLDSBlog focuses on King Benjamin and has a fun marshmallow construction activity.
A Year of FHE shares this terrific FHE on King Benjamin as well.
Both of these lessons can be accompanied by viewing this video from Book of Mormon Stories:
Blessings
LDS Living shares this FHE focusing on blessings that is suitable for older children.
With Teens
Challenge:
The Challenge lesson above for families with children would work equally well with teens, with one exception. Instead of having them draw pictures, play blessing Pictionary, where each person takes a turn drawing a picture of something for which he/she feels is a blessing given to the family by the Lord. Other members in the family guess what the picture depicts.
King Benjamin:
John Bytheway shares this short idea about pitching your tent towards the temple that would would make a great lead in to read the chapter of Mosiah 2 as a family (or even do an in-depth examination of just verse 22).
If you choose to do a Deep Dive of verse 22 (Deep Dive just means to study a verse or a few verses deeply), here are some ideas:
- Look up every footnote.
- Explore the etymology of key words – etymonline.com is a good source.
- Use the Bible Dictionary to explore key points of doctrine or read about the text (e.g., John, Gospels of).
- Create a scripture chain.
- Divide up, having each person take responsibility to deep dive a phrase from the verse then share.
- You can use memorizing as part of a Deep Dive.
- Keep in mind that it is critical to keep scripture in context. Exploring a single scripture with a Deep Dive does not mean that it is to be seen in isolation.
Blessings:
This short and simple FHE on blessings would be a great fit for families with teens who don’t have a long time, but want to focus clearly on their blessings.
With Adults
Challenge:
Sing Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (a beautiful version sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is below).
Consider what the word “prosper” means. The Online Etymology Dictionary shares this information:
prosper (v.) mid-14c., from Old French prosperer (14c.) and directly from Latin prosperare “cause to succeed, render happy,” from prosperus “favorable, fortunate, prosperous,” perhaps literally “agreeable to one’s wishes,” traditionally regarded as from Old Latin pro spere “according to expectation, according to one’s hope,” from pro “for” + ablative of spes “hope,” from PIE root *spe- “to flourish, succeed, thrive, prosper.”
How does this increase our understanding of what it means that Lord will “prosper” His children?
In what ways does the Lord prosper you “according to your hope?” In what ways has He helped you to “flourish” or “succeed”?
Sing the song again, focusing on the line, “Who doth prosper thy way and defend thee.” Why do you think the songwriter combined the ideas of prospering and defending?
Examine the original verses here, and look for examples or ideas about ways in which the Lord prospers His children.
For every year you are old, write down one way in which the Lord has blessed you.
King Benjamin:
Read Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s talk called “King Benjamin’s Manual of Discipleship.”
Blessings:
Watch Elder Clayton’s talk from General Conference entitled “That Your Burdens May Be Light” and listen carefully for the context in which he quotes Mosiah 2:22.
Memorizing
This is a longer verse, so it takes more effort to memorize it. We’ve created a free printable PDF to help you.
Here is how to use it:
- Print the PDF.
- On the first page, read through the scripture line by line. Read each line three times, and then cover with your hand or a book or piece of paper and try to write that line from memory. Repeat until you have copied down the entire verse.
- On the second page, some of the words have been removed with dashes matching the number of letters in the words left in place of the word. Try to write the entire phrase on each line for the scripture.
- On the third page, more words are missing, with only the first letter left. Try to write the entire phrase on each line for the scripture.
- On the fourth page, only the first letter of each word is there. Try to write the entire verse using only the first letters as hints. The number of words per line is indicated in parentheses.
- On the fifth (and last) page, the first letters of all of the words are there. Try to write the verse from memory using only the first letters as clues.
- Feel free to reprint and repeat the exercise until you have mastered the verse.
Main Page
If you would like to see the resources for all of the scriptures, visit this page.
Be sure to visit our Scripture Memorizing Ideas page for ideas and general help on memorizing.