By Alison Palmer

Scripture: Matthew 5:16

Song: “The Things I Do,” Children’s Songbook 170-71

Preparation: Gather a small ball, beanbag or potato, a CD or tape of gospel-centered music and appropriate player.

Lesson: Begin Family Home Evening by playing a game of “Hot Potato.” Pass your ball or potato around between each member of your family while the music plays. When the music stops whoever is holding the potato must mention something they love about the gospel. Ideas can not be repeated. Play until most of the family has had a chance to share their thoughts. Allow any remaining family members to share additional ideas. Testify of the wonderful blessings of the gospel and your appreciation for each person’s growing testimony.

Go around the room and ask each person to share the name of one friend and what they think being able to share their favorite things about the gospel with them would be like.
Discuss any past missionary experience your family has had. What were the results and how did you feel about your attempts to share the gospel with someone?

Explain that Heavenly Father has asked each of us to be missionaries to the people around us and to share those things that make the gospel so precious to us. Sometimes this can feel scary or even impossible. Sometimes opportunities come where and when we least expect them. It can feel a little bit like playing “hot potato.” We love the gospel, and love our friends and neighbors; but, sometimes we just want to give away the great blessings of missionary work to someone else because we don’t want to be the one caught holding the ball.

Fortunately, Heavenly Father has promised us that if we are prepared and try our best He will always help us know what to say or do (D&C 38:30). If we hold on to those missionary opportunities when they come, we can strengthen our own testimonies and help other people find the happiness we receive from the gospel.

Discuss the story of Alma and the Sons of Mosiah. Talk about their great desire to share the gospel with others and the methods they used to open the hearts of the Lamanites.
Read Alma 17:1-2 and specifically discuss the things they prayed for and received as they worked as missionaries. Continue the discussion by talking about things you can each do to be examples of the gospel to the people around you. Brainstorm for other ideas about how to gently and lovingly share the gospel through your words and actions.

Set a goal as a family to try one new thing to be a better missionary family during the coming month.

Activity:

Young children: Use a large poster board to create a testimony collage. Write “I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” in the middle. Have each person in the family draw or write about their favorite part of the gospel on a piece of paper. Their chosen portion could be what they have the strongest testimony of, or just a portion that they enjoy or look forward to the most, such as Primary or eternal families.

Cut out and paste the family’s pictures and writings around the saying on the poster board. Display the poster in a prominent place in your home where its presence can also act as a missionary tool.

Older children: Play charades using missionary related words.

Refreshments:“Missionary Tags”

Ice graham crackers with chocolate fudge icing. Fill a sandwich bag with vanilla icing or warm marshmallow cream. Seal the bag, snip a small corner tip off of the bag, then “pipe” out the icing to write each family member’s name on their own missionary tag.

Now available: Look for Sharing Through Primary Songs: I Am a Child of God, all new music and sharing time material for 2008, by Alison Palmer.