I originally planned this lesson around John Rowe Moyle, the man famously known for his dedication in carving "Holiness to the Lord" on the Salt Lake Temple. However, the closer my lesson came, the more I felt to change my teaching direction. I have a friend who lives in New York City and survived Super Storm Sandy. I had been seeing her pictures on Instagram before, during, and after the storm. Then, on Tuesday I read an email from her that really pushed me to my final decision to change the direction of my lesson. I still tied in John Rowe Moyle, but the majority of my lesson and focus was different.
When I think of work, I think of honeybees. I remembered the talk by Elder M. Russell Ballard from last General Conference, titled
"Be Anxiously Engaged", when he talks of his childhood and his father's honeybees. I read a few paragraphs from there explaining honeybees and a little history on what the beehive symbolizes for us as Latter-Day Saints. I wanted to talk about 3 different types of work during the lesson; paid labor, church callings, and service.
First was paid labor. The manual suggests to have one of the young women take some time to talk about her job. None of the girls in my class have a "paid job", however, one girl that just moved works at the local Quizno's, so I spoke with her a little bit. Her first reaction was, "tell them it's not all it's cracked up to be". But after I asked her some questions, "what about getting your own paycheck?...getting to meet all new people...etc." her reaction changed. A few things that she mentioned I was proud of; being punctual or you won't have a job, not texting while on the clock, etc.
The second point I wanted to touch on was church callings. Every single girl in our entire young women organization has a calling in their respective class presidencies. Sometimes I wonder if they really think their callings are actual callings. This is where I tied in the story of John Rowe Moyle but instead of showing the movie "Only a Stonecutter", I summarized it for them, then showed a few pictures of him, his
wooden leg that he carved himself,
the words that he chiseled in stone, and a google map picture of the
distance that he walked every week. I closed this section of the lesson with the words he spoke to his wife, who was questioning him, while he was packing for his first journey back to the Salt Lake Temple after his accident, "callings are seldom convenient".
The third section of the lesson was focused on service. I asked my friend, Brenda, for her permission to share some of the pictures and words that she shared with me in her email. She was more than happy to give permission and even sent me more pictures and the link to a CBS
60 Minutes clip featuring the area where she has been helping, as a member of
Mormon Helping Hands, with the clean-up.
I also got an email from the
Mormon Newsroom, around the same time as my preparation for the lesson, with a video that I fell in love with and immediately knew I wanted to share with my class. I've attached it below, or you can find it at the above link.
I loved portions of this video because of the things both parties were saying.
From the victims of the storm:
- "The people are so bloody friendly. They're smiling, they're happy, they kind of make you feel good. Which is a nice thing in this situation."
- "They're not here to look like they are helping, they are actually helping."
- "Thank God"
- "The people that have been down here have been so respectful, and so nice, and so wonderful, and so helpful, and so hardworking."
- "They're all action, there's not a lot of standing around, they just get right to work."
- "With people like you we know everything's going to be alright."
- "It's been a Godsend."
From the Volunteers:
- "We've been out here every single day since Sandy hit, just cleaning up basements, unflooding basements, shoveling sand, whatever the families need that they can't do themselves."
- "This is why I came on my mission, to help the people of New York, weather it be preach the gospel or unflood a basement."
- "It's what we need to be doing today."
- "It’s the gospel in action... it’s what Christ taught, and we’re showing what we believe.”
- "People know what they can expect out of someone wearing a yellow vest, they know they're going to get cared for, they know that the work the people do will come from the heart, it's not going to cost any money."
After the video, I read some of the email from Brenda,
"It is equally humbling and heartwarming to walk around the neighborhood
of Belle Harbor wearing the yellow vests emblazoned with the Mormon
Helping Hands logo. From the windows of their cars or from their stoops
or even from bicycles - the residents shout "thank you" and "God bless
you" - you know they aren't thanking you personally, but the collective
group for the work being done to rescue their community. They may
have never met a Mormon before but they love the Mormons now and treat
us as one of their own."
I referred back to Elder Ballard's conference talk to tie in the honeybees again. Just as the volunteers are helping after the storm, we need to share the love of Christ in our work. I found this cute handout on
A Pocket full of LDS prints that fit perfectly.
I went to my local honey store, actually called,
The Honey Store and got some flavored honeystix to give the girls with the handout. Then, as I was shipping a package to my sister-in-law later in the week at
Weiser Classic Candy, I saw some super cute chocolate beehives that I couldn't pass up.
