Use for COME, FOLLOW ME Young Women, Young Men, Family Home Evening, Primary, or “Faith in God” Activity Days
LESSON LIFESAVER Activity/Handout
Testimony Lost and Found match game
ACTIVITY: Create a Testimony Lost-and-Found to show actions that strengthen and weaken a testimony. Tell the youth that by gaining a testimony doesn’t ensure that we will always have it. As a testimony can either grow or diminish, we need to be careful not to lose it. Ask youth to list their ideas on how one might lose or gain a testimony. When we cease to be obedient to God’s commandments we lose our testimony; when we keep the commandments our testimony grows strong.
Lesson Ideas Using Cards:
Step #1: Place cards for actions that strengthen testimony in front of youth and say, “We can gain a testimony as we obey the commandments of God. Obedience strengthens our testimony, making us stronger so that we can resist temptation.”
Step #2: Place cards for actions that weaken the testimony in front of youth and say, “We can lose a testimony as we disobey the commandments of God. Disobedience weakens our testimony making us weak, making it harder to resist temptation.”
To Play Match Game:
1. Divide youth into two teams with a bag full of cards in front of them.
2. Have teams take turns drawing two cards from the bag. If they make a match, they can keep the cards for their team. If no match is made, they lay the cards back face down on the floor or table.
3. To select their match, the next player can either draw one or two cards from the bag or from those lying face down.
4. When a match is made, have youth tell how this will strengthen or weaken their testimony.
5. Once all the matches are made, count the cards. The team with the most cards wins!
SEE LESSON NOTES (below*) for this activity.
TO MAKE Print activity in color or black and white. Slip label inside a plastic zip-close bag and insert the cards.
THOUGHT TREAT: Testimony Trail Mix. Give youth a bag filled with snack crackers, cereal, dried fruit, chocolate chips or M&M candies, or other treats. Tell them that just as this bag has many choices of items to eat along our trail in life, so have we many choices to make which can keep us on the right trail. Or, some choices can lead us off onto the wrong “dead”-end trail (which we can repent and change our direction). Hopefully, we’ll stay on the Testimony Trail that leads to peace and happiness.
MUTUAL NIGHT, SEMINARY, OR FAMILY NIGHT ACTIVITIES
TESTIMONY TRAIL COWGIRL/COWBOY PARTY:
1. Invite youth to participate and plan this activity. Create the trail by first drawing a map on paper to know where to place clues and how to get through the maze.
2. To set up trail place the tape on the floor leading different directions.
3. Tape clues that help you decide which direction to go at all turning points, e.g., “Turn left at Howdy Lane if you play poker.” “Turn right at Howdy Lane if you walked a little old lady across the street.”
4. Divide youth into two groups, or if young men are invited, girls can compete with boys.
5. Teams take turns. At “go,” time them to see who gets through the maze in the shortest amount of time.
6. For the next team, reset the clues at the turning points (marked on your map, see #1). Clues could be laced in straws, balloons, placed in envelopes, under a rock, inside a box, under a bucket, etc.
7. The team that makes it to Happy Valley wins!
TESTIMONY MATCH GAME: Give youth two wordstrips and ask them to write a part, or a phrase, of their testimony on one wordstrip. Then have them write it again on the second wordstrip. Have them divide into two teams and play concentration by turning over two wordstrips to make a match. When a match is made, post one of each pair of wordstrips on the board or a poster. Afterward, have youth take turns reading a testimony wordstrip and adding their own feelings to that testimony.
SHARING–TIME TESTIMONY MEETING: Have youth each present a short testimony to the Primary children during sharing time. They may create visuals or find visuals from the ward library that help them express their testimony. Their testimony might be on a gospel principle they feel strongly about, e.g., an Article of Faith, or the Word of Wisdom.
TESTIMONY TRACKER: Have youth create a special notebook they can take to church meetings or put by their bed to note testimony ideas or gospel principles they wish to live. Then through living the gospel they strengthen their testimony. They can record feelings here or in their personal journal or this book.
TESTIMONY MEETING UNDER THE STARS: Under the stars, outside, show an appropriate church video that expresses what the Church is about (e.g., a video on the Savior or on Joseph Smith and the Restoration). Afterward, allow youth to write their feelings about the gospel. Then openly read and share these feelings with others, having a testimony meeting. Express your own testimony and love for them.
SOURCE: YW2.27
THIS ACTIVITY CAN BE USED FOR Come Follow Me
• MAY Lesson 5 “How can I strengthen my testimony? ⇒
• NOVEMBER LESSON 2 “How do I know if I am becoming converted? ⇒
• DECEMBER Lesson 5 “How can I help my less-active friends return to the church? ⇒
*LESSON NOTES
MORE IDEAS FOR THE ACTIVITY ABOVE:
Strengthening Testimony through Obedience (click HERE to find the lesson on this.) ⇒
Explain that having a testimony now does not ensure that we will always have one. Because a testimony can either grow or diminish, we need to guard against losing it.
Ask the youth, “How can a testimony be lost?” List their ideas on the chalkboard under the third heading. Ask them to make a similar list under the third heading on their papers. Point out that we can lose our testimonies when we cease to obey the commandments of God. Just as our testimonies grow when we keep the commandments, they become weak when we disobey.
Quotations
Ask class members to read the following quotations:
1. “The testimony you have today will not be your testimony of tomorrow. Your testimony is either going to grow and grow until it becomes as the brightness of the sun, or it is going to diminish to nothing, depending on what you do about it” (Harold B. Lee, “When Your Heart Tells You Things Your Mind Does Not Know,” New Era, Feb. 1971, p. 3).
2. “Testimony isn’t something you have today, and you are going to have always. A testimony is fragile. It is as hard to hold as a moonbeam. It is something you have to recapture every day of your life” (Harold B. Lee, in J. M. Heslop, “Directs Church; Led by the Spirit,” Church News, 15 July 1972, p. 4)
At the end of the third list, write the third summarizing statement, “Disobedience to the laws of God.” Ask the youth to add the statement to their lists.
We Must Obey the Commandments to Strengthen Our Testimonies
Chalkboard discussion and activity
Ask the youth, “What should we do to strengthen our testimonies?” List their ideas on the chalkboard in the last column, and ask them to write the ideas on their papers. The list could be long and varied. Encourage the youth to suggest many specific ways to be obedient daily, individually or with friends and family.
Ask the youth to turn to Matthew 22:37-40. Read the scripture together, and discuss how the suggestions listed in the last column help fulfill these two great commandments. Then discuss additional ways in which the youth could strengthen their testimonies by being obedient to these two great commandments.
