Elder Cook Avoiding Bondage

We've been moving right along with our General Conference Review Lessons...or trying to anyway.  We slowed down for some St. Patrick's Day fun and have also been doing some "testing" of our knowledge of General Conference.

Even though, we are only halfway through our review of the talks, our children did pretty well coming up with correct answers to my General Conference Crossword puzzle on Sunday, which you can try for yourself online.  You can also print it out.  

It was a good learning tool as well, as I reminded Guy that General Conference, like life, is an "open book test."  When he came to the last few answers that he couldn't "guess," I showed him how to turn to the Conference Ensign, look up the speaker and search for the answer within the talk.  As we did this together, I felt that helping Guy become familiar with the Conference Ensign was a logic next step (that I hadn't thought much about previously) and a valuable tool for him to have.

Another review activity that we all really enjoyed was "Who said it? Dieter or Dumbledore?" (which appears to be down at the moment, but hopefully it'll be back up soon.  Lots of families must be using it as FHE~!)  Anyway, whether you are an Elder Uchtdorf fan or a Harry Potter fan or both, you'll enjoy this online quiz.

Ok, so last night for Family Home Evening, we got back to business.  After a few rounds of asking fill-in-the-blank review questions about what we've already learned about General Conference, we dove into Elder Cook's talk Lamentations of Jeremiah: Beware of Bondage.

Man, I don't know about you guys, but I felt that the talks from General Conference this time around were a lot more serious than the previous one, but we still managed to make learning about this talk fun for the kids.

Using our white board, I employed a "win, lose, or draw" tactic to help the children learn his four points.

First, we listened to Elder Cook's voice, and I asked the children if they could identify who was speaking.  They were not able to identify his voice (as they could those of the first presidency) but it was good to hear his voice and identify it with his name and face...and then connect all of those things with his latest teachings.

I told the kids I was going to draw parts of his talk, and they would need to try to guess what I was drawing.  I introduced his topic by drawing a picture of someone behind bars.  They guessed "dungeon," "jail," and "prison."  I wrote down "bondage" and we talked about what that word means.

Then I explained that Elder Cook taught about four different categories of pitfalls that can result in us coming into bondage or losing our freedom.

I proceeded to draw things that represented each of his four points:

For some reason, doing this lesson "pictionary-style" really made these ideas more accessible for the children.  I could see where they were at from what they guessed, and drawing forced me to present Elder Cook's points using ideas familiar to them.  

After each point, we asked them to teach us why each of these pitfalls bring about bondage and how and discuss more specific examples that we see in our world today.  They were able to teach the lesson back to us very well.  

One last interesting tidbit is that although Elder Cook speaks of various ways we can come into bondage, Elder Nelson taught that, "Freedom from self-slavery is true liberation."

Here are our General Conference Review Lessons for the October 2013 Conference so far:

The Stronger the Wind, The Stronger the Trees - President Monson

Angels to Watch over Us - President Eyring

Come, Join With Us - President Uchtdorf

The Key to Spiritual Protection - President Packer

The Articles of Faith - Elder Perry

Like a Broken Vessel - Elder Holland

Trust in the Lord - Elder Ballard

No Other Gods - Elder Oaks

Beware of Bondage - Elder Cook

Decisions for Eternity  - Elder Nelson

Repentance: The Hope-filled Path - Elder Scott

The Moral Force of Women - Elder Christofferson

Each Day is a Day of Decision - Elder Nelson

Windows, Priesthood & Tithing - Elder Bednar & Elder Andersen

"Oh, How We Need General Conference!" - Elder Hales