Object Lessons Make Sunday School Exciting

As some of you may know, I used to be the Gospel Doctrine teacher in my single's ward, and I absolutely loved my calling.  I didn't have to worry about getting people to church, I didn't have to go to any special meetings, and I didn't have to bug people about getting their home teaching done.  While on the flip-side, I got the opportunity to interact with members of the congregation and teach lessons, which is something I enjoy doing.

I had an absolute blast with my Sunday school lessons and I hope the people in my class did as well.  I believe that students can tell when their teacher is excited about their subject matter, and that energy rubs off on the students.

I tend to incorporate a lot of pictures, stories, and other attention activities into my lessons; since I always had a tough time paying attention in Sunday School.  Recently I found an object lesson that went along perfectly with a lesson I was teaching on the resurrection of Christ.

I got to the point in my lesson where two angels declare to Mary Magdalene and the other women that Jesus "is not here, but is risen."

The manual points out that President Howard W. Hunter said that those words "contain all the hope, assurance, and belief necessary to sustain us in our challenging and sometimes grief-filled lives."  To illustrate this point, I pulled out a crisp 50 dollar bill that I had withdrawn from the bank a few days earlier:

[Yes, I am aware that that is a 20 dollar bill.  I didn't feel like getting another $50 for the blog.  So use your imagination.]

I asked the class, "who would like $50?"  And of course, most people responded that they would enjoy having an extra $50 in their pocket.

"Well what if I were to wrinkle the bill into a tiny little ball like this?" I said.

The class said that they would still want the money.

"What if I were to stomp the money into the ground and rub on the floor?"

The chorus came again: "I still want it!"

"Well, okay then.  You're making me pull out the big guns."

That's right: Taco Bell Hot Sauce. The class's reaction to this was particularly awesome. I pulled out a paper towel and wiped the excess hot sauce off the bill.  I then held it up--wrinkled, dirty and wet--and asked "who still wants this?"

A few class members said they would still take the money.

"Okay then, you've left me no choice," I sighed.

The class just stared at me in shock.  I remember one of them saying "NOO!"

I asked one last time if anyone still wanted the money.  A few class members said yes, and then another class member said, "No, stop saying you want it! He might light it on fire next!"

I asked someone in the front row why they still wanted the mangled bill.  They said it was because it's still worth $50 to the bank, which is true.

Now let's apply this to the Resurrection with a story.

President Monson once told a story about a time he was in a priesthood leadership meeting with his former stake president, President Child.  President Child was known for his deep knowledge of the scriptures and his probing questions.  When it was his turn to speak, he quoted a well known scripture from Doctrine and Covenants section 18.  If you know your D & C fairly well, you know that the scripture says that "the worth of souls is great in the sight of God."

I'm quoting President Monson's talk now:

"He [President Child] then turned to one elders quorum president and asked, 'What is the worth of a soul?'"

"The stunned quorum president hesitated as he formulated his reply.  I had a prayer in my heart that he would be able to answer the question.  He finally responded, 'The worth of a soul is its capacity to become as God.'"

"Brother Child closed his scriptures, walked solemnly and quietly up the aisle and back to the stand.  As he passed by me, he said, "A most profound reply."- ("Our Sacred Priesthood Trust," April General Conference, Priesthood session.)


In other words, the true worth of a soul isn't who you are now, but it is the potential of what you can become.
In Senatobia, Mississippi, I knew a man who worked for the Federal Reserve.  One day, he brought a giant bag of shredded money to a dinner party we were having.  See, when a bill becomes too worn out for the banks to use, they send it to the Federal Reserve, which shreds the money into hundreds of tiny pieces.

The bag likely had well over $1,000 in it.  The man told me that if anyone were to put a bill completely back together, with the same serial number and everything, the Government would be legally obligated to accept it as legal tender.  This is why the Fed shreds the money into such small pieces.

We as people can be a lot like paper money.  No matter how ripped, wrinkled, or stained that fifty dollar bill was; it was still worth fifty dollars.  And no matter how broken, messed up, or scarred your life is; it is still immensely valuable to our Heavenly Father.

Do not forget that in your dark moments!  You may feel worthless, but to God your worth is infinite.  No matter where you are in your life, He still wants you to return to live with him.  That's the wonderful miracle of the resurrection and the atonement of Jesus Christ: every single thing that was ever wrong on this world can be set right through Christ.  What a wonderfully comforting thought that is.

Sooooo. . . . .

I'm giving my fifth talk within six months in Sacrament meeting this weekend.  In the year leading up to my mission, I gave five talks.  And while on a mission, I gave somewhere in the neighborhood of 16-18 talks.  So lets do some math:

5 + 17 (best guess) + 5 = 27 talks given since September 2007

Sundays since September 2007 =  (52 * 3) + 26 (1/2 of a year) = 182 Sundays

182 Sundays - 48 fast and testimony meetings - 7 General Conference Sundays - 6 Primary and Christmas programs =  121 potential Sundays where I could have spoken

27/121 = .223

.223 * 100 = 22.3% chance that I will be talking in the Sacrament meeting I attend.

22.3 percent!  I don't think that even the Bishop speaks that often in Sacrament meeting.  This percentage would make sense if I was in a branch that only had five members, but I have never been in a ward that had less than 100 people attending it. 

Now, in all fairness, missionaries do get asked to speak a lot.  And they do have to give homecoming and farewell talks.  But I read a friend's Facebook status just yesterday that stated that she's giving her first talk in church in over four years. I couldn't help but wonder if I have some sort of target on my back when I go to church.

By the way, who decided on the carpet colors in LDS Chapels?

P.S.  Don't get me wrong--I really don't mind giving talks in church.  I just don't know why it happens so often.

Small Joys

Top small joys that have happened in the last couple of weeks:

5. The other day, my Business communications professor was passing out papers when he looked at me and said "Jacob, that has got to be one of the coolest hats I have seen in a long time."  I grinned.

"Unfortunately, we don't allow hats in here," he continued. 

I said "oh" and started to take off my hat.

My professor then asked, "who here thinks I should allow Jacob to keep his hat on?"  The class approved.
"I don't think I've made an exception like this in decades," continued the professor.

Yay.

My fashion sense felt validated.

4. Watching Jimmer Freddette and the rest of the Cougars trounce the Aztecs, and then the Wyoming Cowboys (I'm blocking the game in the middle out of my memory, btw).

I was at the BYU-Wyoming game last week.  It was so awesome to get to see the Cougars on their home court.  It was the last home game of the season, so energy was super high!  We have got to have one of the best student sections in the entire nation:

3. This is sort of a corollary to the last small joy, but the media coverage of BYU's honor code was very awesome.  For those who don't follow BYU basketball, Brandon Davies, a starter who has been averaging 11 points a  game, was suspended from the basketball team for the remainder of the season.  This put a serious handicap on what is arguably the best basketball team BYU has ever seen, and was definitely a major factor in the staggering defeat we had against the Lobos right before the Wyoming game.  The incident put the BYU honor code under nation-wide scrutiny. 

I was so surprised to see ESPN commentators say how refreshing it is that at least one college out there is standing up for what they believe in.  And it wasn't just ESPN--Time magazine said the incident could be end up being good for basketball in general.  Polls on Fox Sports showed that over 60% of respondents believed that BYU made the right decision.

It's so refreshing to see that some people still think it's cool to take a stand.

However, my favorite part of this story comes from right after the BYU-Wyoming game.  As BYU is cutting down the net, A very penitant Brandon Davies approached the ladder.  Although not allowed to play, Brandon had been supporting his teammates in a white shirt and tie at the bench during the game.  He barely acknowledged the crowd, and looked as though he didn't feel worthy to participate in cutting down the net, but the student section thought otherwise.  The enormous roar, followed by chants of "Davies! Davies! Davies!" showed that we believe in repentance and forgiveness. 

It was a pretty inspiring moment for a basketball game.

2. When I was sitting on the stands getting ready to give that talk I wrote about here, I noticed a familiar name in the Sacrament program: "Organist--Sister Ockey."  I looked over at the organ and saw a short old lady with white hair sitting there.  "Could it really be her?" I thought.  It had been so long since I had seen her last. . .

When I got up to start speaking to the ward, I said, "Good afternoon y'all.  Before I start speaking I have to do something."  I turned to Sister Ockey.  "Sister Ockey, did you used to teach second grade at Edgemont Elementary over there?"  She smiled and nodded.

"Oh. My. Gosh!" I said into the mic (totally destroyed my professional image within one minute of my talk there).  "Mrs. Ockey was my second grade teacher in 1996--back when I first moved into Farmington.  She was seven-feet tall back then,"  I told the congregation.   I turned back to Mrs. Ockey: "I want to thank you so much for all you did for me.  I turned out okay in spite of all the weird things I did in your class."  (It's true--I was one of those kids that played in the sand at recess and zoned out and doodled all day in class)

I then went on to give my prepared talk.  It went very well.  After the meeting, Sister Ockey and her husband came up to me and gave me great big hugs.  They've retired now, and they also took some time to serve a mission of their own in the British Isles.  I hadn't seen her since I graduated from the second grade, yet she still recognized me.  What a wonderful couple.

1.  My little brother, Elder Jonathan Low, is safe and accounted for.  Despite the horrific devastation that is going on in Japan right now, we got word from his mission president that all the missionaries in the Japan, Kobe mission are safe.  My heart goes out to all those who aren't as lucky as my family is.

He's on the middle-right side of the picture.

A Talk I Recently Gave on Baptism

I've actually been meaning to write on here for a while, but have had a bit of a writer's block on what to actually write about.  

...Come to think about it, I've had a writer's block on everything I've been wanting to write about.  I couldn't even think of an appropriate Facebook status to report the other day  (you know things are boring when you can't even write a sentence about what's going on right now).

So I decided to share with you some thoughts that I recently shared at my BYU student ward a couple of weeks ago.  For those who are not members of the LDS faith; we don't have a regular paid clergy at our church, and the weekly sermons come from different members of the congregation week to week.  It helps each of us learn from each others' thoughts on various subjects, and if you don't like the current speaker, you can take comfort that he's only going to be talking to us for the next 15 minutes.  I'm grateful for every opportunity I have to speak to a congregation because I'm pretty sure that I actually learn a lot more from preparing a talk than the congregation does from listening to it.  Plus, I get to practice some public speaking skills that I may need for future world domination plans.

This last time, I was asked to speak about the broad topic of baptism.  As a missionary, I probably gave seven talks on this topic and taught countless lessons on it during my last two years.  But this time, I really struggled with something to say.  Most of the males in the congregation had been on missions as well, and also had lots of experience on the topic of baptism.  So I naturally wanted to say something that was new and a little bit unique.

Well, during my mission and through a couple of other study sessions, I found some interesting little facts here and there.   Most people who are familiar with the Bible know of story of Jesus' baptism:

 "The cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him...And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: and lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."--Matt 3: 13, 16-17.

So that's pretty familiar stuff to most of Christianity.  Now, a while ago I was browsing the Bible Dictionary, which is found at the back of the LDS edition of the Bible.  The Bible Dictionary is exactly what its name implies--a dictionary for Biblical terms.  I find reading it fascinating (side note:  the unsaid suffix to any usage of the word 'fascinating' are the two words 'to me').  Anyway, there's a little entry in there titled 'Gospels, Harmony of.'  In this entry, you'll find something that looks like this:

In the left-hand column, you'll find a chronological listing of the events in Jesus' life, followed by their location, and then a scriptural reference where you can find this event in the four main Gospels.  As you can (barely) see from the above photo, some events occur in multiple Gospels, others occur in only one.

Now, at the end of the Gospel of John, we read: "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written."  So if we take that statement at face value, that means that the stuff we read in the Bible is really only scratching the surface of the ministry of Jesus.  So we're going to assume that because an event has been written by one of the four Gospel writers, it must be an event that was somewhat more important to that writer than some of the other events in the life of Christ.

In the Harmony of the Gospels table, we'll see 315 events in the life of Jesus listed (yeah, I actually did count that number up--like I said earlier; my life is not that exciting).  Of those events, only 29 were deemed important enough to be written of in all four Gospels.  Some of these events include feeding the five thousand, the triumphal entry, and the betrayal of Judas. 

Now, in this table, we'll find one last column that I haven't mentioned yet: Latter-Day Revelation.  This column lists spots that these various events are mentioned in scripture unique to Latter-Day Saints (i.e.: The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, etc.).  Of the 29 above events, only three are found in all four Gospels and in Latter-Day Revelation--according to this table.  Those events are: John the Baptist's Prophetic Ministry, The baptism of Jesus, and The crucifixion.  The reason the resurrection of Jesus isn't one of the three is because it is actually listed as a couple dozen individual events, but it is covered in all four Gospels plus Latter-Day Revelation (it's a similar story with all the events leading up to Jesus' death, including his suffering in Gethsemane).

So if we were to go off the Harmony of the Gospels' table, it would be fairly safe to say that the three most written about events in the life of Jesus Christ would be:
1.) His baptism and the ministry of John the Baptist.
2.) His death and the events surrounding it.
3.) His resurrection.
(side note 2: Yes, I did count all these things up myself.  No, I do not have a social life.)

Why is it that Jesus' baptism is important enough that every source we've talked about found time to write about it?  I personally believe (and this is just my musings)  that the key rests in the word 'covenant.'  When any of us is baptized, we make a covenant to God that we will keep His commandments and take the name of Jesus Christ upon us.  Jesus has always been the perfect example to each of us, and his example would not be complete without showing us that we need to follow him and be baptized as well.  By being baptized, Christ is essentially telling each of us that there is a path to follow, and that being baptized if one of the very first steps.

I took this covenant upon myself over thirteen years ago.  And I'm sorry to report that sometimes I kind of trample on it or forget about it.  As I was doing this research, I realized that this was pretty important stuff.  It's almost as if the scriptures are saying "these things are important.  I keep repeating them so you don't forget them!"  May we all continue to remember the promises that we have made, and keep them.

Anyway, that's all an outline of some of the things that I spoke about  a couple of weeks ago.  You know, for someone with writer's block, I sure did ramble for a while there.  My congratulations to you if you're still reading this. I know it's kind of a long post, but I found it fascinating [to me].  Please, feel free to comment and share some of your thoughts, I would love to hear from you!

Welcome!

Hello there.  This is the first post in this brand new blog that I've created.  Yeah, I know--blogs are nothing new, I 'm kind of a late comer,  I don't have any real reason to be broadcasting myself to the entire World Wide Web, and so on and so forth.  But hey,  neither does Paris Hilton, and you don't see that stopping her.
 
I guess I ought to tell you a little bit about myself and what you can expect from this blog.  My name is Jake and I live in Utah.  Yes, I do happen to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (more commonly known as the LDS or Mormon Church).  In fact, I just returned from serving a two year mission for my church a little over a month ago.  Those of you who are Mormons know what this is all about, but for those who aren't :  this means that I was one of those guys you may have seen in white shirts and ties that you may have seen around town riding bikes and knocking on doors (perhaps it was yours at an inconvenient time).  This also means that for two full years, I was living away from my friends and family here in Utah, with my only contact with them being emails, letters, and two calls to home a year.  I was also severed from most of the rest of the 'real' world.  We missionaries don't watch TV, listen to radio or popular music, or go to the movies.

Here is a picture of me in the mission field, whilst in front of a bean field.

I'm the guy on the left.

My dad told me that the hardest part of serving a mission is coming home.  It really is kind of a culture shock in a lot of ways.  When I left home at the beginning of September, 2008,  the world had just barely found out who Sarah Palin was.  George W. Bush was still President.  Michael Jackson was still alive.  'The Dark Knight' was the big movie (and the last movie I saw).  Nobody knew what Twitter or Skype was.  When I got back in September, 2010, I had never heard a song from Lady Gaga or Justin Beiber (I didn't really even know who those people were--I just knew that one of them was a girl that dressed funny and appeared everywhere, and the other was Lady Gaga).   And this is all the cultural stuff.  The weirdest part about coming home is the personal stuff.  Seeing home again, catching up with old friends, that sort of business.  It's definitely pretty crazy to see how things have changed ("you guys did what to my bedroom!?"), but even crazier to see the things that don't change ("It's been two years and you're still arguing with that person?!"). 

Yeah, it's fair to say that my religion is going to play a fairly large role in this blog.  I'll probably regularly  share stories from my days as a missionary and such.  It should be fun.  But I'll also be writing a lot about my interests here--things like the YouTube videos I discovered, or thoughts on current events, movies, etc.  Hopefully, this will be an interesting read.