1. Song: "Count your Blessings" Hymn Book
2. Prayer
3. Activity:
Have your whole family gather at the front door. turn off all the lights and blind fold or have your family shut their eyes. Begin walking around the wall. Feel your way completely around the house until you find the front door again.
4. After this experience have all the family meet together in their usual family home evening place and talk about the experience they just had. Ask them if they noticed the obstacles in the way. Ask them what they think the door represented. Ask them if any one pushed or if they fell away from the wall and had a hard time without it's guidance. Ask them if they all indured until they got to the end.
Then explain that the door represented the beginning of your earth life. The darkness represented the forgetfulness or blindness to the truth that we experience when we come into this life. The wall represented the Church, scriptures and the Holy Ghost that we recieved after baptism, and how scary it would be if we didn't have that guidance in our lives . The obstacles represent the obstacles that often try to block us from making it to the end. Don't forget that there is always the adversary trying to push us down or get in our way as well. The door represents entrance into our next life. Or death.
5. read:
Elder Robert D. Hales
Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles
"Our Baptism and confirmation is the gateway into His kingdom. When we enter, we covenant to be of His kingdom--forever!"
After recovering from three major surgeries which have prevented me from speaking in the past two general conferences, what a joy it is to be able to stand in this beautiful Conference Center today to teach and bear testimony to those who desire to hear the word of the Lord.
In the past two years, I have waited upon the Lord for mortal lessons to be taught me through periods of physical pain, mental anguish, and pondering. I learned that constant, intense pain is a great consecrating purifier that humbles us and draws us closer to God's Spirit. If we listen and obey, we will be guided by His Spirit and do His will in our daily endeavors.
There were times when I have asked a few direct questions in my prayers, such as, "What lessons dost Thou want me to learn from these experiences?"
As I studied the scriptures during this critical period of my life, the veil was thin and answers were given to me as they were recorded in lives of others who had gone through even more severe trials.
"My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;
"And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high" (D&C 121:7-8).
Dark moments of depression were quickly dispelled by the light of the gospel as the Spirit brought peace and comfort with assurances that all would be well.
On a few occasions, I told the Lord that I had surely learned the lessons to be taught and that it wouldn't be necessary for me to endure any more suffering. Such entreaties seemed to be of no avail, for it was made clear to me that this purifying process of testing was to be endured in the Lord's time and in the Lord's own way. It is one thing to teach, "Thy will be done" (Matt. 26:42). It is another to live it. I also learned that I would not be left alone to meet these trials and tribulations but that guardian angels would attend me. There were some that were near angels in the form of doctors, nurses, and most of all my sweet companion, Mary. And on occasion, when the Lord so desired, I was to be comforted with visitations of heavenly hosts that brought comfort and eternal reassurances in my time of need.
Though my personal suffering is not to be compared to the Savior's agony in Gethsemane, I gained a better understanding of His Atonement and His suffering. In His time of agony, He asked His Father, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt" (Matt. 26:39). His Father in Heaven sent an angel to sustain and comfort Him in His time of need (see Luke 22:43).
Jesus chose not to be released from this world until He had endured to the end and completed the mission He had been sent to accomplish for mankind. Upon the cross of Calvary, Jesus commended His spirit to His Father with a simple statement, "It is finished" (John 19:30). Having endured to the end, He was released from mortality.
We, too, must endure to the end. The Book of Mormon teaches, "Unless a man shall endure to the end, in following the example of the Son of the living God, he cannot be saved" (2 Ne. 31:16).
The experiences of the last two years have made me stronger in spirit and have given me courage to testify more boldly to the world the deep feelings of my heart. I stand before you today with a resolve to teach the gospel principles like the prophets of old--without the fear of man, speaking clearly with plain talk, and teaching simple gospel truths.
In that spirit, I wish to speak on the ordinance of baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, which takes us out of this world and into the kingdom of God.