What do you know about the Priesthood? Ready? GO!

My dear, dear students-that-I-learned-a-lot-more-from-you-than-you-did-from-me,

If any of you were not at church on Sunday, you may not have heard that you have a new teacher. I know you will all love him, and many of you already do know him well: Brother Troxel. I, on the other hand, hate him for taking my calling to be your teacher. (Kidding!!!) Hate is a strong word. ;)

Anyway, I'm sad to say this is my last blog post for you guys. Our lesson on Sunday was about the Priesthood, DUH, and we just used the scriptures and the True to the Faith manual to find additional things to add to our knowledge base. Brother Troxel was also very helpful in adding some insight about different topics, so thanks!

This is what we wrote on the board:

Aaronic Priesthood:

• Preparatory priesthood (comes before Melchizedek)
• Named after the brother of Moses
• The office of Bishop is an Aaronic Priesthood office
• Priests in the Aaronic Priesthood can bless the sacrament, baptize, and ordain others to offices within the Aaronic Priesthood

Melchizedek Priesthood:

• Authority to confirm members after baptism, and confer the gift of the Holy Ghost
• Officiate in temple ordinances
• Give priesthood blessings

The Priesthood in General:

• Officiate in ordinances
• The power of God, which was used to create the earth
• Purpose is to serve and help others, bring others to salvation
• Rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven
• May only be used in righteousness
• Only given to worthy individuals
• Once you have the priesthood, you retain your authority, but the power of the priesthood is conditional upon obedience/righteousness
• Priesthood keys are used to exercise authority over the church.
• Jesus Christ holds all the priesthood keys
• He gives the Prophet, or President of the Church all of the keys to govern the Church on the earth
• Apostles also hold all the keys, but only exercise or use the keys necessary to perform their duties
• All other priesthood leaders are given the keys that pertain to their offices/callings while they are in those positions
• When a priesthood leader is released, his keys are relinquished

Whew! That was a lot of stuff. The rest of June will continue to be on the theme of priesthood, which is great, because there is much more to learn.

And finally, our LAST...

Challenge: (from Peter) Find a scripture about the priesthood and/or priesthood keys to share with the class on Sunday. Be prepared to say why you chose that scripture.

I hope you all still will say "hi" to me in the hallways at church! I love you all and can't wait to see what amazing and interesting things you do in your lives. Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. Remember that I have a testimony of Him and of the restored gospel. Stay close to the Lord and be obedient and you can't go wrong. I want you all to be happy with the kind of happiness that only the gospel of Jesus Christ can provide, so don't forget the importance of your testimonies and SHARING them! ;)

Love,

Sister Lewis

Priesthood Holders and Women Work Together

Oh, toodles! (That's from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse)

I was out of town for a few weeks and Brother Krebs and Nicole helped me out by leading the class while I was away. One of the weeks that Brother Krebs taught, he asked each person in the class to share their favorite scripture, and explain why they liked it. Here is the list of scriptures that were shared:

Connor - 1 Nephi 3:7
Jeremy - 1 Nephi 22:26
Derek - D&C 24:8
Kerri - Moroni 10:5
Madison - Moroni 10:4
Peter - Alma 26:22
Andrew - Hebrews 12:2
Taylor (visitor) - Helaman 5:30
Nick - James 1:5
Kyler - 1 Nephi 3:7
Rachel - D&C 58:42
Nicole - 2 Nephi 31:12
Kayla - 3 Nephi 13:26-28
Whitney - Mosiah 18:9

I just want you all to know that I used your favorite scripture list to have a little scripture study of my own and I loved your choices!

Last Sunday, we talked about how the priesthood holders (men in the Church) and women work together to build the kingdom of God. The following is a list of some of the main points that were shared. The youth read portions of recent Conference talks to find some of these answers.

• From The Family: A Proclamation... "Husband and wife have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children." Fathers preside over the family in love and righteousness, provide the necessities of life, and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these responsibilities, fathers and mothers are "obligated to help one another as equal partners."
• Ministering: to love and care for others, to do what the Savior would do if He were here. There was a story of a group of football players who were Aaronic Priesthood holders that ministered to a young woman in their school who was being bullied. The boys walked her to and from classes, invited her onto the field after their games, and went the extra mile to love and care for her as the Savior would. After seeing their example, other kids in the school began treating their peers with more respect and kindness. 
• Missionary work can be and is performed by both men and women in the Church. 
• Priesthood holders are always priesthood holders, not just while at church, and should conduct themselves accordingly. Similarly, women in the Church who are disciples of Christ just as the priesthood holders are, should represent Christ in every aspect of their lives. This was compared to the 2013 Youth Theme of Stand Ye in Holy Places. 
• Men are not "the priesthood", rather they hold the priesthood. Men need women and women need men. Both the powers of procreation and the full blessings of the priesthood require both roles. 

And, finally, the challenge...

Challenge: (from Connor) Name one way that you overcome the wicked ways of the world each day.

What it means to bear testimony...

Hey you, cool-people-that-I-like-pretty-well!

Last week we had a lovely class out on the lawn, and betwixt the flying chunks of sticks and bark that were being absent-mindedly chucked to and fro by a few of you, there were some beautiful words spoken, and great thoughts shared. Andrew gave us an AWESOME review of a Conference talk on testimony, and helped us understand what a testimony really is and how we get one (and keep it!).

Thank you, Andrew, and thanks to the whole class for contributing to the spirit and discussion. We made some assignments for the upcoming week, and I wasn't thinking ahead to tell you all that I was going to be out of town. Oopsie! So, Nicole volunteered to help teach the lesson, and Whitney did the challenge for the week. We are going to go ahead with those plans, and Brother Krebs will be substituting for me for the next two weeks.

At the end of his lesson, Andrew also challenged the whole class to bear their testimonies at the next Fast Sunday testimony meeting. I hope you can remember this challenge and that a lot of you will step up to the plate! I would love to hear from you in testimony meeting, as I'm sure the rest of the ward would too.

For this week the challenge from Whitney is also about testimony:
Challenge: Do something to strengthen your testimony, (such as sharing it.)

Love,
Sister Lewis

Prophets and Revelation!

Heidi-ho, neighbors!

We are already in the month of May! Wow. So our new theme is prophets and revelation. This will be a fun month. We had a great lesson this past Sunday. We tried out our new strategy of bringing treats for the youth who completed the week's challenge, and I'm happy to say that almost everyone had something to contribute (and earned a piece of gum since it was Fast Sunday). I love hearing you guys talk about the gospel, so thank you for your participation.

This week we covered two questions: What is the purpose of prophets? and What is the purpose of General Conference?

We listened to a Conference talk by Jeffrey R. Holland from April 2011 to help us with answers to these questions, as well as used the True to the Faith book. Here are the lists of things we came up with for each.

What is the purpose of prophets?

• Speak for God
• Guide Church through revelation both future and past
• Testify of Christ
• Teach the gospel
• Delineate clear lines of sin and truth
• Denounce sin
• Warn / Cry repentance
• Bear testimony of the living prophet

What is the purpose of General Conference?

• Testify of God
• Speak with love and with warning
• Preach faith, hope and charity
• Inspired messages for individuals, and for the present day
• Teach/listen through the Spirit
• Word of God will be heard
• Set standards for the world

I have a testimony that the words spoken in General Conference are the things that God wants us to hear at that particular moment. I have had several experiences where phrases, whole talks, even the hymns chosen have seemed to be directed toward me personally. I know that as we listen with the Spirit to the inspired messages of Conferences, we will be kept under God's watchful care, and our testimonies of living prophets and continuing revelation will grow.

Love,

Sister Lewis

Challenge: (from Amber) Who is your favorite of the current 12 apostles, and why?

How Joseph Smith's Example Teaches Us About Learning the Gospel

This is an old post I am getting caught up on from two Sundays ago. I just wanted to put on here what we came up with as a class for this topic, looking at the life of Joseph Smith, and how he taught us to study/seek/learn truths about the gospel.

We broke into groups and each group looked up scriptures from Joseph Smith History, in the Pearl of Great Price. These first several entries are from various verses within JSH Chapter 1:

• v. 11: "while I was laboring"... [looked up scripture James 1:5]. When you're having extreme difficulties, you should look to the scriptures for answers.
• v. 15: Offer up the desires of our hearts despite the challenges from the adversary telling us not to.
• v. 68-75: [The priesthood was restored, John the Baptist gave the priesthood to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery.] Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost through the priesthood helps us learn the gospel.
• v. 24: Joseph Smith likened scriptures to himself (comparing himself to Paul), as should we.
• v. 25: He had conviction in what he saw. We should try to model that firm testimony.
• v. 41: After the angel Moroni left Joseph Smith, Joseph marveled at the message. We should also marvel, ponder, or muse after hearing or reading gospel truths. Moroni's message was delivered three times, repeating verbatim various scriptures and instructions. There is importance in repetition when learning the gospel. We may learn or hear something new even if the content is the same, the second or third time we are exposed to it.
• v. 34: [talks about a book deposited in the ground, and also about the ancient inhabitants of the land.] It blows my mind to think about all the other people who have lived before us, and the lessons we can learn from reading about their lives. We should learn from the past, through the scriptures.
• v. 28: "I frequently fell into many foolish errors"... "displayed weakness" ... "led me into divers temptations." Prayers will be answered, but we still need to deal with consequences. Even Joseph Smith admitted humbly his faults. Humility is a precursor to curiosity. We must be humble, realizing we don't know everything, then seek for the things we don't know.
• D&C 76:19: "We meditated upon these things"... Meditation/pondering opens our hearts to receive spiritual knowledge and revelation.

Lastly, we chose to repeat Derek's challenge from last week since the blog post was accidentally posted to the wrong blog that prior week.

A pasta see or Apostasy!

Greetings from your 30-year-old teacher!

That's right, friends, I have left my twenties behind. And in the spirit of leaving things behind, I have this fabulous quote from Puumba (the warthog on the Lion King), "You've gotta put your behind in the past." Truer words were never spoken. :)

This week in class we talked about what an APOSTASY is. There have been general apostasies throughout time, periods of wickedness when the truth was lost, including the Great Apostasy after Christ's earthly ministry and before the gospel was restored through Joseph Smith. We also talked about the idea of personal apostasy. Nephi taught we should liken the scriptures to ourselves, for our profit and learning. We came up with a list of how we could apply the apostasy to our lives and here's what we came up with:

General Apostasy

• Corrupt or no priesthood
• Wickedness
• Lord takes away truth
• No living prophets

Personal Apostasy

• Going against God's teachings
• Broken
• Doing opposite of what we have been taught
• Going against God when you know he's right
• Doing it for the treats (obeying for worldly rewards)
• Rejecting the Holy Ghost
• Worshipping false gods

We also talked about some ideas to make class better. We are going to continue to do the challenges, with the youth choosing the challenge for each week. The other suggestions were to have treats in class, brought by whoever chose the challenge for the week, and that those who choose to complete the challenge can eat the treats; to have one of the youth teach part of the lesson each week; to get our challenges earlier in the week; and to have the challenges delivered in a different way than just online.  We will be working on making these changes. For this week, the challenge comes from Derek:

Challenge: In church, when do you feel happiest, and why? Please share an example in class.

See you Sunday!

Love,

Sister Lewis

Reunited and it Feels So Good!

Hey! Ho! Hip-hop-hooray! Ho!


The blog is coming back to life after a brief hiatus. I'm in a bit of a weird mood today, so excuse the greeting. Today was my first day back teaching the Sunday School class in several weeks. I was out of town and we also had Stake and General Conferences recently, and I found myself missing my good ol' youth class. So today we did a little catching up with each other. I've been thinking lately that part of the success of learning the gospel in groups is being comfortable with the people who surround you, in this case, the other members of the youth class. So we spent the majority of our lesson today learning new things about each other for the benefit of hopefully opening up a little more and becoming closer as a class. I enjoyed it thoroughly! Thanks to everyone for being a good sport. I didn't take notes while we were talking, but I remembered at least one thing that each person said about themselves. For those of you who weren't in class today, maybe you'll learn something new by looking at this list! There were some pretty funny stories shared. :)

Derek - competed in a spear fishing tournament
Jeremy - almost drowned a few times, has spent more $ on his car than it's worth
Alec - likes wakeboarding, been to Disneyland
Ryan - never been to Disneyland
Braden - likes baseball, hasn't been to Hawaii
Kayla - likes four wheeling and dirt biking
Avery - fluent in Mandarin, choked a python and got scratched by a tiger
Nicole - has been to Harry Potter World three times, has met Adam Sandler
Rachel - has ridden a motorcycle, has been to college
Amber - runs relays in track
Sister Lewis - is pregnant!

We are talking about the Apostasy and Restoration this month, and I am excited for this topic of study. We also talked about ways the youth would like to improve upon the format of the class, or whether they would like to add something new, or change something we're already doing. One idea was to continue this trend of getting to know one another better by sharing some new fact about ourselves at every class. What do you all think of that? I enjoy the opportunity to get to talk with you and hear things about your lives outside of church because I don't see any of you apart from Sundays very often. There was also discussion about whether we want to continue the weekly challenges, or substitute them for a different idea.

Please help me make this the kind of Sunday School class that you want it to be! I think it has been going well, but can get even better. This week's challenge is related to the topic of improving our class:

Challenge: Come to class next week with at least one suggestion or idea for improving class. Tell me whether you want to keep doing weekly challenges, and if not, what you propose to do instead.

As always, enjoy your week, thank you for all you do, and you ROCK.

Love,
Sister Lewis