General Conference Sharing Time & Family Night

Back in May I planned a Sharing Time about our apostles and prophets where I found pictures that went along with a teaching or quote from each of their spring General Conference talks.  I had the kids match the teachings/pictures up with pictures of the apostles.

It turned out really cute.

Over the past few weeks I've been thinking about that Sharing Time and thinking about how exactly I wanted to get my kids get excited about our upcoming conference (this time I was thinking about my own kids, not the primary kids).  And when I realized that there was a 5th Sunday this month, I felt some stars aligning. 

So many activities are great both for family night and sharing time.  And as I felt some inspiration coming my way, I got excited about how my simple ideas could be adapted for younger and older kids.

But, before I get to my new ideas (the ones I'm using for a whole month of short and easy family home evenings), let me say you could use my May sharing time idea this month.  It's pretty cute (did I mention that already?).  It gets the kids thinking about what we've been taught by our prophets and at the end you could challenge them to tell you one thing the Sunday after conference they heard or learned.  It would also work great as a family night (or a couple of family nights if you've got short attention spans).
I think my favorite part of preparing for the Sharing Time back in May was the prophet pictures I ended up with.  If you want your very own pictures of our current apostles and prophets like mine, you have a couple of options.  If you live near a Deseret Book or LDS Distribution, you can run down and pick up some small pictures for around $.75/each (there are some online, but I don't see them all, maybe I'm not looking in the right place).

Or you can download, print and laminate your own like I did.  They've got them all at lds dot org in a variety of sizes.  I downloaded the biggest size picture for each apostle into one folder on my computer.  After opening the folder in windows, I selected them all and printed four to a page.  They turned out great.

You can download my pictures (the ones that match the quotes, not the apostles themselves) and quotes here. 

I used this picture back on my May post also.  I love it.  That's what General Conference is all about, learning to follow the prophet.  As we follow our living prophets (even when we don't completely understand the reason why) we have the opportunity to test their words, grow our faith and ultimately our testimonies as each teaching lets more light into our lives.  Yahoo!

Okay, the yahoo might be a little silly, but it's really how I feel when I get talking (typing) about the blessings of the gospel. 

So, I guess I'm a little silly.  I'm okay with that.

Last Monday I started my new plan to talk and get excited about fall General Conference.  I pulled out the pictures I'd printed in May and we went over each apostle, trying to remember their names and sticking them on the wall in a prominent and easily reached location (that's the picture at the very top). 

I left space in between each row on purpose.  This upcoming Monday we're going to get to know our prophets just a little better.  I looked online trying to find fun facts about each apostle (I ended up with two for each) and I matched one fact with a picture.  We'll take turns picking a picture and trying to guess which apostle it describes.

The pictures would work great for Junior Primary (younger kids) and would probably work pretty good for Senior Primary, too.  In case you want a little more, you can just have them match the facts (as opposed to the pictures) and that way you get to learn a little more about each of them.

I uploaded the "Getting to Know You Clues and Pictures" to google docs for anyone who's interested.

In case anyone is also wondering what else we're going to be doing for our family nights this month (there are three left until conference) here's the breakdown.

16th - Matching fact pictures to each apostle on our wall
23rd - We'll learn a little more about each apostle using stories I found on Sugardoodle (scroll down to where it says Additional Note and click on Stories of each of the apostles).
30th - We'll be setting goals for conference.  What do we want to learn, what questions do we want answers for and what do we plan to do during conference (it will partly be reverence goals for my younger...and maybe not so younger...kids).

Any of these ideas (or a combination of them) could also be used during a Sharing Time.  I love flexibility!!

I hope you have a great week (and lots of fun preparing for conference)!!

Leah

We'll be passing out something for each child at the end of Primary the Sunday before conference that they can use during conference.  I haven't quite decided what it'll be this time around (although I usually like to keep it simple), but I'll post our plan next week if you'd like to check it out.