Come, Follow Me Daily Study Guide for the week of June 15-21, 2020 covering Alma 13-16. For personal and/or family study of the scriptures, geared towards families with teenagers, single adults, and empty nesters.
*This is a suggested outline that coincides with the Come, Follow Me manual. There is not just one right way when it comes to studying the scriptures. Everyone should study in a way that is best for them, but I do hope that you find these outlines helpful.
**I highly suggest getting a scripture journal. Throughout the year there will be several times that I will suggest jotting something down in your scripture journal. These are also great for writing down any impressions or “Aha” moments that you might have as you study the scriptures.
***A free PDF DOWNLOAD of the Study Guide is available at the bottom of this post, making it easy for those who’d like to print out a copy. OR you can add Melanie’s Library to your mobile device home screen by following these instructions, click HERE
****SONGS – For a list of suggested songs for each day of the week, be sure and check out the blog called Music for Latter-day Life by clicking HERE
FHE DAY
Start the week off right with a Family Home Evening that is focused around the upcoming week’s Come, Follow Me. Sign up for the Teach Me FHE email group and receive an FHE outline delivered right to your inbox every Sunday morning. Sign up at the bottom of this post.
REST FROM THE LORD
BACKGROUND
ATTENTION GETTER:
Have everyone stand up and do several different activities in place that will raise their heart rate. For example, have them run in place for 60 seconds, do 25 jumping jacks, and 5 burpees.
(To do a burpee, start from a standing position, then squat down and place your hands on the floor in front of you. Quickly kick both feet out behind you so you are in a pushup position, and then do one pushup. Next, bring your legs forward to go into a squatting position again, and jump up.)
When you finish, give everyone a second to catch their breath and then discuss how nice it is to rest after physical exertion.
SCRIPTURE/PONDER & DISCUSS
In the scriptures, we learn of a different kind of rest.
READ: Alma 13:6, 12, 13, 16, 29 and note every time the word “rest” appears.
- What other words or ideas appear with it?
- What do you think “the rest of the Lord” might mean?
- How is it different from physical rest?
GOSPEL LIBRARY APP
In the Gospel Library app, click on SCRIPTURES, STUDY HELPS, GUIDE TO THE SCRIPTURES, and then REST
Read what it says:
The enjoyment of peace and freedom from worry and turmoil. The Lord has promised such rest to His faithful followers during this life. He has also prepared a place of rest for them in the next life.
Many of us think that we have to wait until heaven to receive “the rest of the Lord.” How does this explanation disprove that?
MINI LESSON
We can obtain rest from the Lord today as we look forward with faith to Christ’s Second Coming.
READ: ALMA 13:25
How awesome it would be if it were today! 🙂
SHARE STORY BY EMILY BELLE FREEMAN:
(Taken from Don’t Miss This)
Our good friend Nish once had a mentor with whom she would meet every Friday to study scripture. The woman lived in a home with a window looking out upon the grandeur of the Rockies. Hers was a home where you didn’t knock, you just walked in. So, every Friday Nish would walk into the house, and she would find the woman standing at the window in her family room holding a mug in one hand but drinking in the beauty from outside. She would turn around when she heard Nish enter the room and welcome her with the same two-word greeting every single time: “Maybe today.”
After several weeks, Nish asked her what it meant.
She learned that her friend stood at the window and wished for the coming of Christ. Every morning. When she turned away from the window, she expressed the anticipation and hope she always carried in her heart…maybe today.
Don’t you love her hope in the coming of Christ?
Someday Jesus Christ will come again bringing deliverance, and unity, and love. He will come with healing in His wings to rescue, and restore, and reclaim. It will be a time of great joy and gathering. Would to God that it would be in our lifetime.
Maybe even today.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES (optional)
ENSIGN ARTICLE: He Will Give You Rest
TEACHINGS OF JOSEPH F. SMITH: Finding Rest in Christ
SOMETIMES GOD ALLOWS THE RIGHTEOUS TO SUFFER
BACKGROUND
VIDEO: Zeezrom Believes, and the Righteous Are Persecuted | Alma 14 (3:51), Click HERE
SCRIPTURE
You might wonder, as many do, why terrible things happen to people who are trying to live righteously. You may not find all the answers to this difficult question in Alma 14, but there is much to learn from the way Alma and Amulek responded to the situations they faced.
READ: Alma 14: 6-13
What do their words and actions teach you about why the Lord sometimes allows righteous people to suffer?
MINI LESSON
QUOTE BY ORSON F WHITNEY:
“No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God . . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire and which will make us more like our Father and Mother in heaven.”
SHARE THE FOLLOWING STORY:
(Taken from General Conference talk “Refined in Our Trials” by President James E. Faust)
Some years ago President David O. McKay told of the experience of some of those in the Martin handcart company. Many of these early converts had emigrated from Europe and were too poor to buy oxen or horses and a wagon. They were forced by their poverty to pull handcarts containing all of their belongings across the plains by their own brute strength. President McKay related an occurrence which took place some years after the heroic exodus:
“A teacher, conducting a class, said it was unwise ever to attempt, even to permit them [the Martin handcart company] to come across the plains under such conditions.”
Then President McKay quoted an observer who was present in that class: “Some sharp criticism of the Church and its leaders was being indulged in for permitting any company of converts to venture across the plains with no more supplies or protection than a handcart caravan afforded.
“An old man in the corner … sat silent and listened as long as he could stand it, then he arose and said things that no person who heard him will ever forget. His face was white with emotion, yet he spoke calmly, deliberately, but with great earnestness and sincerity.
“In substance [he] said, ‘I ask you to stop this criticism. You are discussing a matter you know nothing about. Cold historic facts mean nothing here, for they give no proper interpretation of the questions involved. Mistake to send the Handcart Company out so late in the season? Yes. But I was in that company and my wife was in it and Sister Nellie Unthank whom you have cited was there, too. We suffered beyond anything you can imagine and many died of exposure and starvation, but did you ever hear a survivor of that company utter a word of criticism? …
“‘I have pulled my handcart when I was so weak and weary from illness and lack of food that I could hardly put one foot ahead of the other. I have looked ahead and seen a patch of sand or a hill slope and I have said, I can go only that far and there I must give up, for I cannot pull the load through it.’”
He continues: “‘I have gone on to that sand and when I reached it, the cart began pushing me. I have looked back many times to see who was pushing my cart, but my eyes saw no one. I knew then that the angels of God were there.
“‘Was I sorry that I chose to come by handcart? No. Neither then nor any minute of my life since. The price we paid to become acquainted with God was a privilege to pay, and I am thankful that I was privileged to come in the Martin Handcart Company.’”
Our trials, though uncomfortable and sometimes even miserable, can mold us and shape us into the person we are destined to become if we will turn our hearts to Christ in the process. It is the purpose and reason for them. They are the lessons from which we must learn from. We are here on earth attending “school” in a sense, gaining the education needed to prepare us for exaltation.
PONDER & DISCUSS
How does Heavenly Father respond when His children cause each other to suffer?
READ: Moses 7:28-29, 32-33
Is it comforting to know that we worship a God who weeps with us and for us?
How does Satan respond to our rebellion?
READ: Moses 7:26
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES (optional)
CONFERENCE TALK: “Refined in Our Trials” by President James E. Faust
VIDEO: Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? (4:35)
ENSIGN DIGITAL ARTICLE: Why Does God Allow Bad Things to Happen?
NEW ERA ARTICLE: When Good Things Happen to Others and Bad Things Happen to You
NEW ERA ARTICLE: Five Scriptures That Will Help You Get through Almost Anything
QUOTE BY SPENCER W. KIMBALL:
“If all the sick for whom we pray were healed, if all the righteous were protected and the wicked destroyed, the whole program of the Father would be annulled and the basic principle of the gospel, free agency, would be ended. No man would have to live by faith.
“If joy and peace and rewards were instantaneously given the doer of good, there could be no evil – all would do good but not because of the rightness of doing good. There would be no test of strength, no development of character, no growth of powers, no free agency, only satanic controls.
“Should all prayers be immediately answered according to our selfish desires and our limited understanding, then there would be little or no suffering, sorry, disappointment, or even death, and if these were not, there would also be no joy, success, resurrection, nor eternal life and godhood.”
THE LORD’S POWER TO STRENGTHEN AND HEAL US
BACKGROUND
VIDEO: The Sting of the Scorpion (2:50), Click HERE
SCRIPTURE/MINI LESSON/PONDER & DISCUSS
READ & ACT OUT:
As you read Alma 15:1-12 have family members act it out. Have someone be Alma, Amulek, Zeezrom, and the Narrator. (Optional – Instead of acting it out, you could also use these verses as a Readers Theatre and have a Narrator do most of the talking with Alma and Zeezrom speaking their parts as indicated in the verses)
What similarities do you see between the video and Zeezrom’s healing?
In the video Elder Patrick Kearon taught,
“We find healing and relief only when we bring ourselves to the feet of the great physician, our Savior Jesus Christ. We must cease fighting against God and instead give our whole hearts to him holding nothing back. Then he can heal us. Then he can cleanse us from the venomous sting of sin.”
Do you believe that is what Zeezrom did? Why do you believe this?
What did Zeezrom do to act in faith?
What does Alma the Younger do to help Zeezrom find hope in Christ?
There is sometimes confusion about why we need a bishop to help us repent for more serious sins…In these verses, you can see the assistance, support, and guidance Alma the Younger provided Zeezrom as he sought forgiveness. This is similar to the assistance, support, and guidance, a bishop can give us.
Elder David A. Bednar has taught,
“The Savior is often referred to as the Great Physician. … Guilt is to our spirit what pain is to our body—a warning of danger and a protection from additional damage. From the Atonement of the Savior flows the soothing salve that can heal our spiritual wounds and remove guilt…The results of sincere repentance are peace of conscience, comfort, and spiritual healing and renewal…Your bishop or branch president is the spiritual physician’s assistant who is authorized to help you repent and heal.” (Ensign May 2013)
What eventually happened to Zeezrom? (Alma took him on a mission, see Alma 31:6)
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES (optional)
CONFERENCE TALK: The Healing Power of Christ By Gordon B. Hinckley
NEW ERA ARTICLE: Why and What Do I Need to Confess to My Bishop? By Elder C. Scott Grow
ENSIGN ARTICLE: The Enabling Power of the Atonement
GENERAL CONFERENCE DAY
Study a recent General Conference talk. A great way to study a conference talk is to have your own conference issue of the Ensign and a highlighter. Listen to the talk and as you listen, highlight the part(s) that stands out to you. Then after the talk, review and/or share and discuss what you have highlighted.
THIS WEEK’S TALK: An Especially Noble Calling By Joy D. Jones, click HERE
SUMMARY: Every woman’s faithful and unique contributions are vital. “The Lord loves effort, and effort brings rewards” as individuals keep practicing, progressing and striving to follow the Lord. “He doesn’t expect perfection today,” but, as in times past, “our journey does, indeed, take effort, hard work and study.” Such efforts bring eternal rewards. “Our continuing role is to receive continuing revelation.” With greater capacity and proficiency to receive revelation, individuals receive more power to accomplish the work of salvation and exaltation. “There is beautiful unity between women and men in accomplishing God’s work today.” Men and women alike access the power of the priesthood through covenants made with the Lord — beginning with the covenants of baptism and culminating with those covenants made in the temple. “Sisters, I pray that we will recognize and cherish priesthood power as we ‘cleave unto our covenants,’ embrace the truths of the scriptures and heed the words of our living prophets.”
CATCH UP DAYS
Do one of the days that you missed OR any of the additional resources listed.
Yours Truly,
P.S. For more Come, Follow Me resources, check out my post Your Ultimate Guide to Come, Follow Me. It lists over 100 Come, Follow Me resources that are available online starting with the church’s resources at the top. You can find it by clicking HERE.
P.P.S. Sign up here for the Teach Me FHE email group and receive FHE outlines delivered right to your inbox every Sunday morning.
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