Primary 4 Lesson 14
During our lives, each of us will sin. We will sin many many times because we are not perfect. Heavenly Father knows that we are not perfect but He does love us.
For my class, I have prepared a backpack filled with bags of rocks. These bags each have a label. Because my class is filled with 8-9 year olds, the sins that I have included are lying, being mean, talking back, gossiping, disobeying, cheating and judging. If I were giving this lesson to teenagers or adults, there would be many other sings that I would add. And the bag would have the potential of being very very heavy.
I will have each of the children lift the backpack and share with the class what it feels like to carry that much weight on their backs.
Sin is just like the backpack. Although you can’t see what is in the backpack, it is obvious that there is something heavy that you are carrying. Because Christ died for us, there is a way to lighten our load and potentially remove the backpack altogether.
As we take each of the bags out of the backpack, I will discuss each sin. Some of the sins cause a lighter load than others. But together they make the burden heavier than we can bare. Each of these sins keep us from drawing closer to our Heavenly Father. Each of these sins keep us from building a strong bond with our families.
How can we remove the burden of these sins? Christ said that He is the light and the way and that only through Him can we return to our Father in Heaven. Only because of Christ can we repent of our sins.
What does it mean to repent? In Alma chapter 36 we can read what we need to do to repent. To summarize, we need to do these following steps…
- Recognize sin.
- Confess the sin and pray for forgiveness.
- Do our best to make up for the wrong.
- Forsake the sin.
- Obey the commandments and live more like the Savior
The story for today’s lesson helps all of us see that we can repent, even though sometimes it will be hard to literally right the wrong, we can make things better.
Because I like using different media sources for my lesson, I will show the children the Book of Mormon videos. The first is called “Alma the Younger Repents” and the second is called “The Sons of Mosiah become Missionaries”. (I have linked to the PDF version of the children’s Book of Mormon stories).
The story tells us of how Alma’s son, Alma and his friends (who were the sons of King Mosiah) tried to destroy the church despite their fathers’ efforts to build the Kingdom of God. These young men traveled through town tearing down the gospel and professing that it was a bunch of lies. The fathers prayed that their sons would see the truth and that they would quit destroying that which was good.
The sons of Mosiah and Alma the Younger were visited by an angel that told them to stop telling lies. Alma fell to the ground and could not speak and became very weak. They took him to his father. Alma knew what had caused his son to become weak and unable to speak. He prayed that his son would be once again strong. After 2 days, Alma awoke and told the people that he had repented and that God had forgiven him.
After that, Alma and the sons of King Mosiah had to right their wrongs so they became missionaries and traveled around sharing the truthfulness of the gospel.
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For this lesson, in order to get strong participation with the kids, we will play a game. I’ll divide the kids into two teams and will give a point for each team that gets their question correct. So that I don’t have kids yelling out the answers, each team will be given a question. If they can’t answer it, the other team will have a chance to do so. This way I’ll also be able to guide the discussion a little better.
Here’s the list of questions with the discussion point in parenthesis.
- Who prayed for Alma and the sons of Mosiah?
- What did they pray for? (What do you think your parents pray about when they are praying for you?)
- In order to receive answers for their prayers, how did Alma and King Mosiah pray? (Why is faith important when you are praying?)
- What happened to Alma the Younger and his friends that showed them the power of God?
- After Alma and his friends were visited by an angel, what changed for them? (Why is a change of heart important for repentance?)
- Who helped Alma repent? (Why do we need to remember the Savior when we confess and repent of our sins?)
- How did Alma and his friends try to right their wrong? (If you hurt someone’s feelings, how can you right the wrong? What about if you steal or lie or gossip?)
- Once they had repented, what did these men do? (How can becoming a good example help you achieve forgiveness?)
