Book of Mormon [MOSIAH 29-ALMA 4] Creative Object Lessons with Maria Eckersley

Maria: 00:00:14

Welcome to the creative side of week 23, you guys.

Maria: 00:00:17

Time for the good stuff.

Maria: 00:00:18

Okay, I've got three good options for you.

Maria: 00:00:20

There are so many that you could choose from this week, but I'm hoping these

Maria: 00:00:23

will at least just get you started, help you realize that there are creative

Maria: 00:00:26

ways to teach everything you find here.

Maria: 00:00:27

In fact, you could even use the steadfast and immovable one with the rice this week.

Maria: 00:00:31

There's a whole bunch that are already at your fingertips that

Maria: 00:00:33

you could use to teach this study.

Maria: 00:00:35

But I've got three that I think Really fit the bill.

Maria: 00:00:38

So let me walk you through those.

Maria: 00:00:39

I'm going to take you through the supplies and a quick introduction of

Maria: 00:00:42

each one first, and then we'll spend a few minutes in each next so that you

Maria: 00:00:46

can understand how you might adapt these to whatever your circumstances are.

Maria: 00:00:49

I'm hoping that these object lessons are usable to families, to grandparents, to

Maria: 00:00:54

teenagers teaching their own classes, or to kids teaching their older siblings.

Maria: 00:00:58

I'm trying to keep things simple and easy and really memorable.

Maria: 00:01:02

Okay, here's your supplies list.

Maria: 00:01:03

The first one this week, you're going to learn a lot about the pride cycle.

Maria: 00:01:07

And I, one of the things I don't love about the pride cycle is we tend to teach

Maria: 00:01:10

it almost like this circular loop that you can't escape from, you know, I just think

Maria: 00:01:15

there are exit ramps on the pride cycle.

Maria: 00:01:17

So I like to teach it as a figure eight.

Maria: 00:01:19

And this is what we're creating in order to teach that this is

Maria: 00:01:22

a storytelling object lesson.

Maria: 00:01:24

So you can actually use this as you go through the stories of this week's study,

Maria: 00:01:27

or you could just use it as a storytelling tool to teach the pride cycle.

Maria: 00:01:31

I've made it.

Maria: 00:01:32

basically like a gnome village and then you have all these adorable little

Maria: 00:01:36

gnomes that will travel through the pride cycle and you'll be able to talk

Maria: 00:01:39

to your kids about how to exit off the pride cycle because you see it this

Maria: 00:01:43

week you'll see both you'll see some nephites who loop around the pride cycle

Maria: 00:01:47

just like we would expect and some who exit and we're going to talk about both

Maria: 00:01:51

so for that one supplies wise you just need the printable printed on cardstock

Maria: 00:01:54

ideally and then a piece of cardboard you just don't want like a thick amazon

Maria: 00:01:58

box cardboard you want something like a cereal box Thickness of cardboard

Maria: 00:02:02

and then a couple of neodymium magnets.

Maria: 00:02:04

Those are those small little silver magnets that you can

Maria: 00:02:06

get at any office supply store.

Maria: 00:02:07

They're stronger than the black craft ones and they'll work much better.

Maria: 00:02:10

Okay.

Maria: 00:02:11

Second one, we're going to talk about Nehor.

Maria: 00:02:13

Ideally we're talking about priest craft and how our kids can watch for it.

Maria: 00:02:16

Cause I think it's rampant in our day.

Maria: 00:02:18

And so we want to be aware of it and then also know how to get away from it.

Maria: 00:02:24

I think a big part of Understanding how to defeat priestcraft is

Maria: 00:02:28

learning to look away and we're going to talk all through that.

Maria: 00:02:31

I don't have anything to hold up for this one because this is a video clip I'm

Maria: 00:02:34

going to have you watch that will teach you how priestcraft distorts your vision

Maria: 00:02:38

and how to get back to what is true.

Maria: 00:02:40

And I'll walk you through that in a second.

Maria: 00:02:42

Okay, third one.

Maria: 00:02:43

This one refers back to that episode with the Amlicites where

Maria: 00:02:46

they choose to mark themselves.

Maria: 00:02:48

We talked about this a little bit in the questions.

Maria: 00:02:50

This is when they don't want to be Nephites anymore.

Maria: 00:02:53

They don't want to be associated with the righteous Nephites.

Maria: 00:02:55

They want to mark themselves like the Lamanites do, but they don't

Maria: 00:02:58

want to go all the way over to what the Lamanites do, and they choose to

Maria: 00:03:00

just put a mark on their foreheads.

Maria: 00:03:02

And I think it's really interesting to see how that causes separation.

Maria: 00:03:06

It's they choose to separate from their own people.

Maria: 00:03:10

They choose to separate from the covenant.

Maria: 00:03:11

They choose to separate from God.

Maria: 00:03:14

And that Choice is delightful to Satan.

Maria: 00:03:18

I think that's his whole goal, is to find ways to get us to separate

Maria: 00:03:21

from our divine identity, from the love of God, from our fellow men.

Maria: 00:03:25

He wants separation.

Maria: 00:03:27

So I thought it would be a good time to bring back the wedge.

Maria: 00:03:30

I redesigned it this time so that it's applicable for this week's study.

Maria: 00:03:33

But this object lesson of the wedge, you could teach with the

Maria: 00:03:36

printable wedge that I give you.

Maria: 00:03:37

You could fill this with candy and I'm sure it would be awesome.

Maria: 00:03:39

A huge favorite for your class, but you also, if you're especially in a family

Maria: 00:03:43

setting, you could go out with your kids and split wood and teach the very

Maria: 00:03:46

same concept or just hold up a split log and talk about what had to happen

Maria: 00:03:50

in order for it to be in that state.

Maria: 00:03:52

So for this one supplies wise, you either just want cardstock and some

Maria: 00:03:55

treats for the printable, or you could or you want to grab some wood splitting

Maria: 00:03:58

supplies yourself and take your kids out and show them what it's like.

Maria: 00:04:01

Either one of those will work.

Maria: 00:04:02

Grab those supplies and then come on back and I'll show

Maria: 00:04:04

you how to pull each one off.

Maria: 00:04:13

Everybody knows that throughout the Book of Mormon you're

Maria: 00:04:15

going to see the pride cycle.

Maria: 00:04:16

It loops over and over and over again and I think it's really good to take a week to

Maria: 00:04:22

talk to your kids about what that means.

Maria: 00:04:24

Why it happens, how we have that tendency to like flow in

Maria: 00:04:27

that circle and how we can exit.

Maria: 00:04:30

Because what I love this week, like I mentioned, is that you can

Maria: 00:04:32

see two groups of Nephites who choose different paths, right?

Maria: 00:04:35

One group of Nephite follows that pride cycle.

Maria: 00:04:37

They get blessings, they get prideful, they start to be disobedient

Maria: 00:04:42

and that causes pain and loss.

Maria: 00:04:43

And then they loop into the other side where because of their pain

Maria: 00:04:46

and loss, they humble themselves.

Maria: 00:04:48

And then they come closer to God and you just see this cycle.

Maria: 00:04:50

But you also see some Nephites who Are blessed and have an abundance of

Maria: 00:04:55

things and choose to give it freely.

Maria: 00:04:57

It's such a beautiful batch of scriptures.

Maria: 00:04:59

I laid out for you in the notes, but it talks about how they even, despite the

Maria: 00:05:03

fact that they have all this abundance, they don't hoard it to themselves.

Maria: 00:05:06

They don't seem to have this feeling of scarcity that the others do,

Maria: 00:05:09

and they just give what they can.

Maria: 00:05:11

They take care of the poor.

Maria: 00:05:12

They make sure no one is hungry, that everyone has clothes, like

Maria: 00:05:14

they they care for their brethren.

Maria: 00:05:17

And I love that piece of the pride cycle.

Maria: 00:05:19

I think it shows that there's an exit, which is why I love seeing

Maria: 00:05:22

the pride cycle in the Bible.

Maria: 00:05:24

an infinity loop.

Maria: 00:05:25

If you look at the printable, I've designed this so that there are two sides.

Maria: 00:05:28

There's this good side over here.

Maria: 00:05:30

That's all the, or over here, sorry.

Maria: 00:05:32

All the little greenhouses are kind of the positive parts of the pride cycle.

Maria: 00:05:36

This is when you come to yourself and you choose to be humble.

Maria: 00:05:39

And then you're, you choose to enjoy the blessings of God.

Maria: 00:05:42

Like that's on this side.

Maria: 00:05:43

So where I begin, if you see under the printable, there's some numbers.

Maria: 00:05:46

And number one is humility.

Maria: 00:05:48

When you get to humility, you.

Maria: 00:05:50

are choosing to submit yourself to God and do what he needs you to do,

Maria: 00:05:54

which is quickly followed by obedience.

Maria: 00:05:56

And then as you go a little bit further, you gain charity, you take care of your

Maria: 00:05:59

fellow men, and then you're blessed.

Maria: 00:06:00

And it's this beautiful cycle, right?

Maria: 00:06:03

What's hard is the natural tendency in this path is to head over

Maria: 00:06:07

into this side, into the darker, more reddish little gnome houses.

Maria: 00:06:11

And that's where you see pride creep in.

Maria: 00:06:13

You see this in the story several times this week, where

Maria: 00:06:15

people who are blessed by God.

Maria: 00:06:17

Because of righteous choices and making covenants with him, start to

Maria: 00:06:20

take advantage of those blessings and start to separate themselves from

Maria: 00:06:24

others and see themselves as better than others and they grow in pride.

Maria: 00:06:27

And when you grow in pride, you start on this other track.

Maria: 00:06:30

This is when you head towards disobedience.

Maria: 00:06:32

Selfishness, and then it ends up with pain and loss.

Maria: 00:06:36

And then because of that pain and loss, you turn back to God, you humble

Maria: 00:06:39

yourself and you start that cycle again.

Maria: 00:06:41

What I love helping my kids understand is first I would use this printable

Maria: 00:06:44

to walk them through all those different steps of the pride cycle

Maria: 00:06:47

and show them how, yep, this is this natural loop that often happens.

Maria: 00:06:50

But then I would show them that they don't have to take that course.

Maria: 00:06:54

And the way you'll do this is with a game.

Maria: 00:06:55

So you're going to take this printable.

Maria: 00:06:57

If you want, you could make one for each of the kids in your class or

Maria: 00:06:59

in your family, and then you play a version of red light, green light,

Maria: 00:07:02

the same way you would play it in elementary school, but your people

Maria: 00:07:05

are going to be moving their little.

Maria: 00:07:07

So in the printable, you're going to find these tiny little gnomes that are

Maria: 00:07:10

going to travel through the pride cycle.

Maria: 00:07:12

We picked gnomes because I feel like gnomes are one of those creatures that

Maria: 00:07:15

can either be like good and nice, or they can be like selfish and greedy.

Maria: 00:07:19

So that's why I chose gnomes.

Maria: 00:07:20

But the idea here is that they will practice that pride cycle.

Maria: 00:07:24

And as they play red light green light, one person stands in front of

Maria: 00:07:26

the room, they turn their back and say green light, and then you try

Maria: 00:07:29

to travel through the pride cycle.

Maria: 00:07:31

And I would tell your kids that every time they pass through that humility.

Maria: 00:07:34

Little house, that's one point and they're trying to get up to seven points to win.

Maria: 00:07:39

And so as a person has turned around they're gonna try and move

Maria: 00:07:41

their person through the pride cycle as quickly as they can.

Maria: 00:07:44

And then of course when the person turns around and sends red light if they can

Maria: 00:07:47

see their gnomes moving or can see them on that darker side of the pride cycle, then

Maria: 00:07:52

they have to go back to the beginning.

Maria: 00:07:53

They lose their points and they start over.

Maria: 00:07:54

You can go through the notes and see all the rules to the game.

Maria: 00:07:57

But the idea is really simple.

Maria: 00:07:57

If you're caught on the red side of the pride cycle, that

Maria: 00:08:00

negative side, then you lose.

Maria: 00:08:01

You lose in that moment and you switch places with the person who's the caller.

Maria: 00:08:05

What I'm hoping is after a couple rounds of this, you could talk to

Maria: 00:08:08

your kids about their other option.

Maria: 00:08:11

If they play that exact same game, and instead of following through the

Maria: 00:08:15

entire pride cycle, instead of winding their way through, the green and the

Maria: 00:08:19

red, they could choose to just loop.

Maria: 00:08:21

You know, if they get through humility and then obedience and

Maria: 00:08:24

then charity and then blessings, they don't have to head into pride.

Maria: 00:08:28

What we see in the Nephites this week is they don't go into pride.

Maria: 00:08:30

A lot of them choose to stay humble and they choose to give of what they can.

Maria: 00:08:34

They choose to use the charity that they feel and take care

Maria: 00:08:36

of the people around them.

Maria: 00:08:38

Essentially what they do is they stay looping over here on the green

Maria: 00:08:42

and so they're never on the red.

Maria: 00:08:44

And if your kids play that same game of red light, green light,

Maria: 00:08:47

and never are on the red, they win.

Maria: 00:08:49

Right?

Maria: 00:08:50

That's, that's the promise of the Lord is that if you keep yourself humble, and

Maria: 00:08:54

even as he blesses you, if you abundantly give to others, you stay on that green

Maria: 00:08:58

side and you receive an abundance, an abundance of love from your father in

Maria: 00:09:02

heaven, an abundance of the spirit and the fellowship that you feel with your

Maria: 00:09:06

fellow men, as you care for each other.

Maria: 00:09:08

I think that helps us.

Maria: 00:09:11

And hopefully this silly little gnome object lesson will help your kids get it.

Maria: 00:09:14

I think this is one of those object lessons that you'll probably

Maria: 00:09:17

pull out a few times this year.

Maria: 00:09:19

It's one that you could use over and over again as you study.

Maria: 00:09:22

As you see people enter the pride cycle, you could say, all right, you guys,

Maria: 00:09:25

which house are they in right now?

Maria: 00:09:26

Where are they on the path?

Maria: 00:09:27

What's going to come next?

Maria: 00:09:29

And then if you can try to highlight those times when people depart the

Maria: 00:09:33

normal path and choose to stay righteous.

Maria: 00:09:36

I think, conversely, you can teach the other.

Maria: 00:09:39

And there are people who choose to stay in this red zone the whole time, who

Maria: 00:09:43

never humble themselves before God, and then they just kind of spiral down.

Maria: 00:09:47

And I think you can teach both throughout the Book of Mormon,

Maria: 00:09:50

not just with this week's study.

Maria: 00:09:59

This week we get a little more understanding of priestcraft.

Maria: 00:10:02

Why it's so risky and so magnetic at times and how we can pull ourselves

Maria: 00:10:07

away from it and see things clearly.

Maria: 00:10:10

This is all about Nihor.

Maria: 00:10:11

You're going to see Nihor in this week's study.

Maria: 00:10:13

He's the one that teaches that everybody's going to be saved.

Maria: 00:10:16

Everyone's going to have eternal life and be exalted.

Maria: 00:10:17

You don't need to worry about being obedient.

Maria: 00:10:19

You don't need to worry about learning the doctrine of Christ or anything else.

Maria: 00:10:22

You don't need to worry about covenants or ordinances.

Maria: 00:10:25

You just need to rest easy knowing God will take care of all of us.

Maria: 00:10:29

That's his teaching.

Maria: 00:10:31

And it draws people in.

Maria: 00:10:32

They are pulled in by his words because it sounds comfortable and easy and safe.

Maria: 00:10:38

And it's got a lot of allusions back to Satan's strategies in the pre mortal life.

Maria: 00:10:42

That's a little bit of Nehor.

Maria: 00:10:44

You can hear Satan's words trickling in to Nehor's ideas.

Maria: 00:10:48

And it's interesting how it's phrased in this week's study.

Maria: 00:10:51

You learn a little bit more about what priestcraft is and how it's identified.

Maria: 00:10:54

It means you're setting yourself up for a light.

Maria: 00:10:57

To me, what I think is so sinister about priestcraft is that they

Maria: 00:11:01

almost block the light of the Savior.

Maria: 00:11:04

They create confusion and darkness by teaching these false doctrines.

Maria: 00:11:09

And then in that confusion state, they present themselves as a light so that

Maria: 00:11:14

people are drawn to them rather than drawn to the Savior as they should be.

Maria: 00:11:18

They put themselves in between.

Maria: 00:11:20

The people and the Savior.

Maria: 00:11:21

They also do it for the wrong motives, right?

Maria: 00:11:24

They don't try to intercede on behalf of the Savior to do God's will.

Maria: 00:11:27

They do it so that they can get popular, they can get praise, they can get wealth.

Maria: 00:11:32

All of that is tied up in priestcraft and those should be red flags

Maria: 00:11:36

for us as we're moving forward.

Maria: 00:11:37

out and about in this crazy world that we're living in.

Maria: 00:11:40

So I think you want to teach your kids about that confusion state,

Maria: 00:11:44

what priestcraft does to our vision.

Maria: 00:11:46

And this is where the spiral activity comes in.

Maria: 00:11:48

So I'm going to show you a video.

Maria: 00:11:50

It'll last maybe 15, 20 seconds or so.

Maria: 00:11:53

And while it's spinning, you want to look right at the center.

Maria: 00:11:56

There's a little dot in the middle.

Maria: 00:11:58

I want you to stare right at that dot.

Maria: 00:11:59

Try really hard not to look at anything.

Maria: 00:12:01

anything else in the room.

Maria: 00:12:03

You just want to focus in on that dot.

Maria: 00:12:05

After 20 seconds, then I want you to take your eyes and look at an object in

Maria: 00:12:10

the room, a water bottle that's on the coffee table, a book, even the hand in

Maria: 00:12:13

front of your face and see what happens.

Maria: 00:12:16

You will see really quickly that your perspective changes.

Maria: 00:12:19

You, the water bottle will look warped.

Maria: 00:12:22

Your hand will look distorted.

Maria: 00:12:23

Things change.

Maria: 00:12:24

change in your vision because you've been fixated on this one spinning dot.

Maria: 00:12:29

The reason I like that for teaching priestcraft is, I feel like that's

Maria: 00:12:32

what happens when we stop looking at a true light source and instead

Maria: 00:12:36

look at this one spinning dot.

Maria: 00:12:37

Twisted one.

Maria: 00:12:38

Our vision changes.

Maria: 00:12:40

I think that's what happens with these Nephites.

Maria: 00:12:41

They weren't bad people.

Maria: 00:12:42

The ones that will eventually, you know, pull away from their

Maria: 00:12:46

own families and neighborhoods.

Maria: 00:12:48

They're not bad people.

Maria: 00:12:48

They just have a distorted vision.

Maria: 00:12:50

They've been looking at a false light source and it's distorted their vision.

Maria: 00:12:54

And so when they look at the world around them, it looks warped.

Maria: 00:12:56

I'm sure you have people like this around you that, that see the same

Maria: 00:13:00

beautiful doctrines of the gospel that you see, and they see them differently.

Maria: 00:13:04

And so I think it's our job to continually look away.

Maria: 00:13:09

What's powerful about this trick is if you teach your kids to look away.

Maria: 00:13:13

So if I show you that same 20 second clip and tell you that I want you to look at

Maria: 00:13:17

that dot here and but then look away.

Maria: 00:13:19

Like look for two seconds at the spiral and then look away at that water bottle

Maria: 00:13:22

on the table or watch the spiral for a second and then look away in the

Maria: 00:13:26

distance at a picture on the wall.

Maria: 00:13:28

If you look away as often as you can, that spiral doesn't do anything to your vision.

Maria: 00:13:33

You have normal vision and you can tell that nothing is distorted.

Maria: 00:13:37

And I think that's what daily discipleship is all about.

Maria: 00:13:39

I think that's what Amel will teach his people.

Maria: 00:13:41

He wants them to remember their connections to God.

Maria: 00:13:45

And I think it's why he asks us to pray always, why we're asked to read our

Maria: 00:13:49

scriptures daily, to attend the temple regularly, to go to church every Sunday.

Maria: 00:13:53

It's your chance to look away from those spinning spirals that you see in

Maria: 00:13:57

the world and get your bearings again.

Maria: 00:14:00

I don't think we can ever live in a world where we won't see those spirals, and

Maria: 00:14:03

they won't catch our eye now and then.

Maria: 00:14:05

But every time we choose to be a disciple of Christ and do what he asks

Maria: 00:14:08

us to do, we center ourselves again and see what is true and what is real.

Maria: 00:14:13

And so we don't need to be afraid of all the spirals that are around us.

Maria: 00:14:17

They're going to be there, but we don't have to be warped by them.

Maria: 00:14:20

And hopefully this object lesson helps you teach that.

Maria: 00:14:29

Sometimes when I go to teach youth or adults, I will bring a physical wedge,

Maria: 00:14:33

like a big, heavy, metal wedge to teach this object lesson because I found no

Maria: 00:14:38

matter who I'm teaching, the visual clicks, it really helped me the first

Maria: 00:14:42

time I came to understand it, and I've taught it many times, so I'm hoping

Maria: 00:14:45

it helps you as well, but I really think sometimes we get so focused

Maria: 00:14:49

on sin that we forget Satan's goal.

Maria: 00:14:52

That Satan's goal is not just to get you to sin, but to get you to separate.

Maria: 00:14:55

He wants you to separate from your connection to God.

Maria: 00:14:58

He wants you to separate from your divine identity.

Maria: 00:15:00

He wants you to mark yourselves in some way that separates you

Maria: 00:15:04

from the people around you.

Maria: 00:15:06

And I think we can do this in lots of different ways.

Maria: 00:15:08

Like we talked about in the insights and in the questions, I think this idea of

Maria: 00:15:11

marking ourselves to show the world that We're not quite as righteous as others.

Maria: 00:15:15

We, we really do fit in here.

Maria: 00:15:16

I think we have a tendency to do that just like these Amlicites

Maria: 00:15:20

did, and it causes separation.

Maria: 00:15:23

And anytime we separate from God, especially from our understanding

Maria: 00:15:26

of God, we lose spiritual power.

Maria: 00:15:29

There's this beautiful talk from Elder Kleben Gant.

Maria: 00:15:30

This is how he phrased it.

Maria: 00:15:32

Whenever the adversary cannot persuade, cannot persuade imperfect yet striving

Maria: 00:15:35

saints such as you to abandon your belief in a personal and loving God, he

Maria: 00:15:39

employs a vicious campaign to put as much distance as possible between you and God.

Maria: 00:15:45

The adversary knows that faith in Christ, the kind of faith that produces

Maria: 00:15:48

a steady stream of tender mercies and even mighty miracles, goes hand in

Maria: 00:15:52

hand with personal confidence that you are striving to choose the right.

Maria: 00:15:55

For that reason, He will seek to access your heart, to tell you lies, lies

Maria: 00:15:59

the Heavenly Father is disappointed in you, that the Atonement is beyond your

Maria: 00:16:02

reach, there's no point in even trying, that everyone else is better than you,

Maria: 00:16:06

that you are unworthy, and a thousand variations of that same evil theme.

Maria: 00:16:11

As long as you allow these voices to chisel away at your soul,

Maria: 00:16:14

you can't approach the throne of God with real confidence.

Maria: 00:16:17

Whatever you do, whatever you pray for, whatever hopes for a miracle you

Maria: 00:16:21

have, there will always be just enough self doubt chipping away at your faith.

Maria: 00:16:25

Not only your faith in God, but your confidence in God.

Maria: 00:16:28

in yourself.

Maria: 00:16:29

Living the gospel in this manner is no fun, nor is it very healthy.

Maria: 00:16:32

Above all, it is completely unnecessary.

Maria: 00:16:34

The decision to change is yours, and yours alone.

Maria: 00:16:38

Elder Klugman Gatt, I think, teaches the risks of becoming separated.

Maria: 00:16:43

And then he says, if you want to close that gap, the tools are in your hands.

Maria: 00:16:48

This is where the wedge comes in.

Maria: 00:16:49

So, what I would do, if you don't have a physical wedge in your house that

Maria: 00:16:52

you could use to take your kids out.

Maria: 00:16:54

log splitting.

Maria: 00:16:55

I mean, for me, that would be so much more memorable than a printable.

Maria: 00:16:57

So I vote for that option.

Maria: 00:16:58

If you can, if you can't then use the printable option, but you

Maria: 00:17:01

want to show what a wedge does.

Maria: 00:17:03

Just troubleshoot with your kids, talk to them about the purpose of a wedge.

Maria: 00:17:07

Basically, if I was going to like set this wedge somewhere, I would have

Maria: 00:17:10

to find a crack in the log, right?

Maria: 00:17:12

I can't just put it on a perfectly round log.

Maria: 00:17:14

I have to find one that has a crack in it somewhere.

Maria: 00:17:17

And I start with this skinny end, because if I can get that skinny end in and

Maria: 00:17:21

tap it a couple of times, then that.

Maria: 00:17:23

Separation becomes bigger and bigger.

Maria: 00:17:25

If I tap it a few more times, it expands.

Maria: 00:17:27

And then, with one whack, oftentimes I can split the whole log.

Maria: 00:17:32

And I think this is what Satan does with us as well.

Maria: 00:17:35

Sin is a wedge.

Maria: 00:17:36

It is, no matter what our sin is, whether it's pornography, or lying,

Maria: 00:17:40

or gossiping, or whatever sin it is, he uses that as a wedge to take any

Maria: 00:17:45

crack in your testimony and Split it.

Maria: 00:17:48

Break it wide open and make you doubt your connection to God.

Maria: 00:17:52

Make you doubt in the power of the atonement of Christ.

Maria: 00:17:54

And the more separated you are The more you feel like you can't get back.

Maria: 00:17:59

I think that's what Elder Kleppingat was warning about.

Maria: 00:18:01

So if you look on the wedge, I give you the story of the Amlicites, where

Maria: 00:18:04

they began by just having different opinions than their neighbors.

Maria: 00:18:08

And because they couldn't resolve those opinions about whether or

Maria: 00:18:10

not they should have a King, they turned against their neighbors.

Maria: 00:18:13

They.

Maria: 00:18:14

Marked themselves.

Maria: 00:18:15

They choose to eventually to join forces with the Lamanites and then

Maria: 00:18:18

they completely Attack their neighbors.

Maria: 00:18:21

They become this warring Faction that attacks the people that

Maria: 00:18:25

they used to be close to.

Maria: 00:18:26

I think you see the wedge throughout this story That's why on the verses this week.

Maria: 00:18:30

I kind of walk you through the Amlicites splitting that it

Maria: 00:18:34

starts with this small gap.

Maria: 00:18:36

And then over the course of those verses, it widens and widens until they crack.

Maria: 00:18:40

And they just don't, they don't return back.

Maria: 00:18:43

But my hope is the QR code that's on the other side of the wedge will

Maria: 00:18:47

help you show your kids how that doesn't have to happen to them, even

Maria: 00:18:50

if they have divided themselves.

Maria: 00:18:52

Even if they feel separate from God somehow, there is a beautiful way back.

Maria: 00:18:57

And I think you see it with this video.

Maria: 00:18:58

If you follow the QR code, this is a video about a girl who

Maria: 00:19:01

struggled with pornography.

Maria: 00:19:02

It tells a little bit about her backstory of how she got into it in the first

Maria: 00:19:05

place, about her serving a mission and then falling back into those habits of

Maria: 00:19:08

pornography and coming to an understanding that the atonement of Jesus Christ

Maria: 00:19:13

infinite and it can reach her and there is no limit to the number of times she can

Maria: 00:19:17

turn back to God for help and for healing.

Maria: 00:19:20

And I think that's the story of the Wedge.

Maria: 00:19:23

No matter how separate you are, no matter how many times you've let the

Maria: 00:19:26

adversary knock you apart from what you know to be true, you can come back.

Maria: 00:19:32

The promise of the Wedge.

Maria: 00:19:33

the power of the atonement of jesus christ is it's like this infinite wood

Maria: 00:19:37

filler that fills all gaps and closes all wounds and breaks you know closes

Maria: 00:19:42

every every crack on the surface so that not only do we become whole again but

Maria: 00:19:47

there are no places for the adversary to get a new wedge in that's what the

Maria: 00:19:51

atonement of jesus christ offers and i'm hoping having a candy filled printable

Maria: 00:19:56

wedge to take home with them will help your kids remember that always.

Maria: 00:19:59

And hopefully if they know that this QR code can link them to a video

Maria: 00:20:02

that will send some healing to their soul, they'll choose to push back

Maria: 00:20:07

against this tendency to separate from God and do something better.

Maria: 00:20:11

See, I told you it was going to be a good week.

Maria: 00:20:13

All right, you got lots of things at your fingertips.

Maria: 00:20:15

I hope you get into your scriptures.

Maria: 00:20:17

If you need extra help, remember there's two big tools available to you.

Maria: 00:20:20

If you need more detailed notes, you can find those on the website.

Maria: 00:20:24

If you go to gather.

Maria: 00:20:25

macmom.

Maria: 00:20:25

com, subscribers have access not just to the printables, but also to the notes.

Maria: 00:20:28

And there are lots of notes.

Maria: 00:20:31

to not just help you understand the scriptures but to tie

Maria: 00:20:33

them to conference messages.

Maria: 00:20:35

You probably notice that I really love to pull in quotes from our

Maria: 00:20:38

leaders into my Come, Follow Me study because I feel like it helps me

Maria: 00:20:42

understand it and connect it to my day.

Maria: 00:20:44

So the notes are full of those, you guys.

Maria: 00:20:46

There's insights notes and creative notes, both of which feature different

Maria: 00:20:50

quotes from different prophets, apostles, and women leaders of the church

Maria: 00:20:53

that can guide you in your efforts.

Maria: 00:20:55

You also can come find me on the live.

Maria: 00:20:56

So, Monday morning, 10 a.

Maria: 00:20:58

m.

Maria: 00:20:58

Mountain Time.

Maria: 00:20:58

That's when I do the live on the site.

Maria: 00:21:00

So go to gather.

Maria: 00:21:00

macmom.

Maria: 00:21:01

com.

Maria: 00:21:01

Just go to the events tab and click RSVP for the upcoming live

Maria: 00:21:05

and you'll be able to join us and be part of the conversation.

Maria: 00:21:09

And then the last thing I would tell you is if subscriptions aren't your

Maria: 00:21:11

thing, and I totally get it if they're not, then you can find all these

Maria: 00:21:14

printables and the instructions for how to pull them off over on my Etsy shop.

Maria: 00:21:18

So not just this week's printables, but all the ones we've done for the

Maria: 00:21:21

Book of Mormon so far, and many of them could be used for this week's study.

Maria: 00:21:24

So head over to the Etsy shop.

Maria: 00:21:25

You can find the links down below this video, but otherwise I hope you

Maria: 00:21:29

have everything you need and that you really enjoy this week of study.

Maria: 00:21:32

It's a big turning point in the history of the Nephites.

Maria: 00:21:34

They're going to change how they mark time based on what happens this week.

Maria: 00:21:37

So enjoy it and then come back next week for even more.