The Cozy Red Cottage: Come Follow Me: Ephesians (September 30–October 13) Part one Preparing for General Conference

Edit: Thank you for being patience with me again! The post has been updated :)

I did not forget about Come Follow Me lesson helps but I was unexpectedly busy today and late as usual getting this posted :) Ephesians will be studied over the next two weeks and I'm going to be posting the lesson helps/ideas in pieces over the next week. Tonight I have a couple of ideas to help you teach Ephesians 2:19–22; 4:11–16. "The Church is founded on apostles and prophets, and Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone." (individual and family manual) I love that this goes perfect with preparing for General Conference next weekend. Tomorrow I will share an additional idea that works for this topic or can be used as more of a countdown-it will be added to this post (edit it has now been added). Then Tuesday or Wednesday I'll be sharing some fun General Conference activities. If you have any requests for me to make please let me know and I'll try and accommodate :) Then Friday or Saturday I'll post lesson helps for the rest of Ephesians for you to use the following week.

For Family Night we are going to talk about the importance of having a living prophet. I found this article on churchofjesuschrist.org. I plan to share these quotes from President Uchtdorf and then the video clip on that page as well. I also included a journal page. Older kids can share their testimony of the prophet, maybe thoughts on a favorite talk or any thing they want. Younger kids may like to draw a picture of President Nelson or of something he has asked us to do.

We are also going to talk about way we can prepare for general conference. I used this article as a reference. There are actually 11 ideas on the page but I narrowed it down 6 and hopefully picked ways your kids can participate as well. This can be done as a family or individually.

Before the lesson cut out the cup and hot chocolate pieces. As a family start with number 1 and build the hot chocolate cup. There is a page of quotes that go with this that you can also use. You can finish your lesson with a delicious cup of cocoa OR use the checklist page turn this in to a week long activity. The idea is to do each of these steps during the week and as the step is completed you will earn something to help them make a yummy treat to enjoy during General Conference. In this case hot chocolate (I was going to do ice cream sundaes but it is freezing here so I switched it). Print of the checklist and as the task is done circle the item you get to enjoy. During conference have your hot cocoa bar set up and let your family members make their treat based on their preparation. For example if you "dedicated yourself to truly listening" then you will get a cup or a mug or if you you prpared your home and cleared your schedule then you get whip cream. The last one is a candy cane but you can use any topping-maybe sprinkles! Explain that General Conference will only be as special and meaningful if we prepare ourselves to listen to the messages and act on the prompting we receive. If we put little effort into it we will receive little just like with our hot chocolate if we only add an ingredient or two our hot chocolate their won't be much to it.

I'm not sure if my explanation made much sense so please don't hesitate to ask any questions! I will be including some fun printables and activities to go along with this theme in the Conference pack.

To help with studying past talks I included this activity. This is another one that can be used in one night or spread through out the week. Print the leaves and the quotes (glue or tape the matching cards back to back). I plan to pick 1-3 a day and read the quote. This will be in place of our normal scripture study. If you would like to use these to learn more about the apostles and prophet you can find some fun fact cards in the fishing post linked below. You can hide the leaves around the house and have your family collect them, maybe add paper clips and a magnetic fishing pole to gather the leaves, or you can keep it simple and place them in a bowl. I did include a basket that you can cut, fold, and tape the sides. This would be a fun way to store and save your leaves. I also included some planning sheets. I like to use these with my kids and let them plan an fhe. I know some of you do mini devotionals so I added that option and I added a page for personal study. Use what works for you.