Purpose: Talking with your family about all the ways we care for our bodies. Our bodies are gifts from Heavenly Father and caring for for them shows we are grateful.
***We understand and admire that all bodies are different. Heavenly Father is so gracious and amazing that each of us may have differences but we are all loved and worthy of respect. If something is a tender subject in this lesson, accommodations are appropriate. You may also skip this lesson if you feel it is what is best for your family.***
Possible scriptures: Proverbs 20:1; Isaiah 5:11-12; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 1 Corinthians 3:16-17; Hebrews 12:12-13; 2 Nephi 2:27; Helaman 3:35; Doctrine and Covenants 29:35; Doctrine and Covenants 49:18-19 (but maybe tie in the Word of Wisdom use of “Sparingly”); Doctrine and Covenants 59:16-20; Doctrine and Covenants 136:24;
Possible Songs: In Our Lovely Deseret, Hymn 307; For Health and Strength, Children’s Songbook page 21; The Lord Gave Me a Temple, Children’s Songbook page 153; The Word of Wisdom, Children’s Songbook page 154; Healthy, Wealthy and Wise, Children’s Songbook page 280; The Prophet Said to Plant a Garden, Children’s Songbook page 237;
Possible Materials: This puzzle of the body. The story figures for the Word of Wisdom (I wish they had included Emma. If you do, too, this is a similar enough set of figures to borrow her from). The picture of Daniel and his friends and the figures to go with the same story (I like this one better. It includes Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. But it requires coloring). A picture of Florence Nightingale.
Preparation: Begin with prayer. Read the suggested scriptures, along with Doctrine and Covenants 89 and Daniel 1. Read through the lesson, including any links, and carefully select the most relevant material for your family. Children: Watch this video on the 4 Hebrew boys keeping their belief and on receiving the Word of Wisdom. Also watch this video about Florence Nightingale.
Lesson:
Discuss how last week’s challenge went.
Introduction: Have your family stand up and sing Head, Shoulders, Knees, and toes. Ask them how we can touch our shoulders or our toes? Heavenly Father gave us bodies! He gave us bodies so that we could learn and progress. When we get gifts from Heavenly Father, we can show Him we are grateful by taking care of what He gave us. Tell your family that we will talk about ways we can care for our bodies by putting a puzzle together.
- First, hold up the pair of pants. Read Genesis 3:21. Tell your family we can care for our bodies by wearing appropriate clothing. For little kids, talk about clothing appropriate for the weather. Clothing keeps us safe from the elements. It keeps dirt at bay, helps our body stay the correct temperature, and provides protection for our skin. If you have potty-training age children, talk about how underwear is better than diapers (any tie-in you can make, am I right?). For older children talk about how modesty is a protection, as well. We cannot prevent all evil, and we are not responsible for others’ thoughts, but we can do our part in protecting ourselves. Furthermore, Heavenly Father asks us to use moderation in our attire, avoiding trends and overly flashy clothing. Read Philippians 4:5. When we wear fancy clothing, we forget to treat our bodies as Heavenly Father intended: as instruments and not as objects or ornaments.
- Next, hold up the torso. For younger family members, talk about how our stomach is in our torso and our stomach is where our food goes after we chew and swallow. All throughout history, we have been given rules about food to help us be healthy and strong. Read Deuteronomy 14:2-3 and Proverbs 23:20-21. Talk about which food is healthful and which food should be eaten in moderation. Are there any foods we should avoid? There are too many foods to make a complete list. Also remember to eat all types of foods (fruits, vegetables, grains, proteins), and that those foods are clean and safe. We are also asked to fast occasionally. Read Isaiah 58:6,8-9. In modern revelation, we are told to fast once a month. When we use our will over our physical appetites, we are reminding ourselves that we are in charge of our bodies. We should also remember to drink enough water.
- Connect the mouth to the torso. Brushing and flossing teeth keeps our bodies healthy and strong. With good teeth, we can eat healthful foods. Furthermore, sick teeth make bodies sick.
- Place one arm onto the torso. Have everyone flex their muscles and praise them for how strong they are! Ask the family how we get to be so strong? We exercise! We use our muscles. Heavenly Father wants us to use our bodies to become strong. There are many types of exercises; some help us improve flexibility, some help balance, and some give us more strength in our muscles and our organs. Read 1 Corinthians 9:24-27. We will be blessed by having a strong and healthy body. Having a strong body means having control over our bodies.
- Now add the ears. Tell your family that sometimes our bodies need specific things. We need to listen to our body and know what it needs. Read Mosiah 4:27 and Doctrine and Covenants 10:4. Ask your family what it means to not run faster than you have strength. Sometimes we should listen to our bodies when they tell us to rest. Sometimes they need extra vitamins. Sometimes they need to see a doctor. If we listen to our bodies, they will help us know how to help them.
- Add the eyes. Tell your family that Heavenly Father wants us to get adequate sleep. Read Doctrine and Covenants 88:124. Our bodies are soo blessed by sleep! It gives our bodies time to heal. It helps the chemistry of our bodies to regulate. It prevents diseases. Think about how you feel when you are tired. How can being well-rested help your day be better?
- Add a foot. Sometimes we need to get extra help for our bodies. Sometime we need to take ourselves to a doctor! They can help us when we are sick and they can make sure we stay healthy by checking our heart and our ears and eyes.
- Add the other foot and say that to take care of our bodies, we also have to run away from things that will trap us. These aren’t real traps, but they make us stuck like traps. These things are called addictions. Read 3 Nephi 18:15 and Jeremiah 5:26. Some addictions are bad for our bodies, like drugs or alcohol. Some are bad because they keep us stuck in our own thoughts. And some are bad because they keep us from doing the things we should be doing. They mess with our brain and thoughts and we do things we would never do just because our bodies are dependent on something and we can’t think of anything else. They take away our agency.
- Place a hand on the arm. Tell your family that one way we can avoid the traps of addiction is to use our time wisely. We are making unhealthy choices when we sit in front of a TV all day. We aren’t exercising or using our body for good that way. How can we use our time wisely? How is that taking care of our bodies?
- Add the second arm. Heavenly Father has asked us to not mark our bodies with tattoos or scars. Read Leviticus 19:28.
- Now put the second hand on the other arm. Tell your family that we can control germs and avoid sicknesses by washing our hands. We can wash our whole bodies! When our bodies are clean, we are more comfortable. We avoid irritating our skin and making it itchy. When we are clean, it is easier to be happy. Read Doctrine and Covenants 42:40-41
- Hold up the hair and ask your family how we care for our hair. Answers should including brushing, washing, and cutting it regularly. Why is caring for our hair important? Caring for our hair helps us be comfortable and not itchy. It keeps lice and other bugs away. Bushing our hair keeps it tidy. Read Luke 12:6-7. Heavenly Father is aware of us, even our hair! Our hair breaks and falls out sometimes, naturally. It doesn’t hurt when it falls out, and yet Heavenly Father loves us enough that he cares for something as little as the hairs on our head. He asks us to keep our hair clean and tidy so that we can show modesty and love for ourselves.
- Finally, put on the hat. How is the sun good for us? It provides vitamins that keep us feeling happy and healthy. The sun is good for our bodies, but too much sun can cause sunburns and cancer. Talk to your family about protecting our skin from the sun. Remind them that we wear proper attire for the weather, and this includes protecting our body from the sun! Sometimes protecting our bodies from the weather means more than wearing the right clothing. It also means avoiding weather that is dangerous, wearing sunscreen, and seeking shade where necessary.
- Ask your family if there are any other ways that they can think of to care for our bodies.
From Church History: Tell your family that when the saints lived in Kirtland, they started a school for men to learn more about Heavenly Father’s plan. It was called the School of the Prophets. Hold up the figures of the men learning from Joseph. These men didn’t know as much about their bodies as we know. They had some bad habits. Some of them smoked and some of them chewed tobacco. They made the room stinky and dirty after they left. Emma complained about the mess. This made Joseph think about healthy habits and what we should do for our bodies, so he talked to Heavenly Father about it. Heavenly Father told Joseph that we should care for our bodies. Read Doctrine and Covenants 89:1-4. He gave us some rules to follow! Ask your family if they know any of those rules. Are they on our list of ways to care for our bodies? At the end of the revelation, Heavenly Father gives us a promise for keeping His Health rules. Read verses 18-21.
From the Scriptures: Hold up a picture of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Tell your family that there was a time that the Hebrews were captured by the Babylonians. They took all the smart and healthy boys to live in the palace to work for the king. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were some of those boys. When they were there, the king told his guards to feed the boys plenty of food and drinks. Some of that food and drink was stuff that the Hebrews were commanded not to eat. When Daniel asked to have healthful food and not the food they were commanded to avoid, the guards were worried that the king would be mad. Daniel asked to test their diets for 10 days and see what happened, and the guards agreed! After the 10 days, the boys that had eaten the food like Heavenly Father commanded were healthier and stronger than those that had eaten all of the other stuff. Because Daniel followed what he knew was right, Heavenly Father blessed them. Would it have been easy to tell the king’s guard that you could not eat what he had brought you? The boys had decided long before they were ever captured that they would obey Heavenly Father’s rules. When we decide early to keep Heavenly Father’s rules, it is easier to tell someone no when they us to break those rules. Heavenly Father will help us keep our promises and we will be healthier and happier because of them!
From World History: Respecting our bodies is more than what we put inside them. It is also about remembering to keep our bodies clean! We know lots of ways to keep our bodies clean, but there was a time when people didn’t know as much as we did. Florence Nightingale lived during that time. Hold up a picture of her for your family. Tell your family that she wanted to grow up to be a nurse, but at the time that was not a good job for a wealthy lady! Hospitals were dirty and scary places. But Florence wanted to change that! She made all the people in the hospital wash their hands regularly, only used clean bandages and supplies, and washed the hospital often. She knew that people needed cleanliness in order to get better! Because of her, people stopped getting sicker when they came to a hospital. She changed the way that people thought about being clean. When we keep ourselves and the area in which we live clean and free from germs, we can improve our health and avoid sicknesses.
Further Discussion:
Read Gospel Principles chapter 29:The Lord’s Law of Health and Doctrine and Covenants 89. Talk in further detail about the Word of Wisdom and how it applies to our lives. Discuss what it means to be a principle with a promise. Furthermore, is everything that we need to avoid listed in the Word of Wisdom? Surely, as soon as Satan thought that we intended the list to be complete, he would create more evil in order to lead people astray.
Recent Conference talks to consider in your discussion: Teaching Self-Reliance to Children and Youth, by Hugo E. Martinez; Worthiness is not Flawlessness, by Bradley R. Wilcox; One Percent Better, by Michael A Dunn; Why the Covenant Path, by D Todd Christofferson; Giving Our Spirits Control over Our Bodies, by M. Russell Ballard; Principles and Promises, by Thomas S. Monson (clearly I had to go back a way to find enough talks).
Challenge:
Challenge your family to pick one aspect of caring for their body to improve. This can either be done on an individual or family basis. The Family Home Evening Resource manual lists a few activities for inspiration, including starting an exercise goal, creating a workout routine, and building an exercise space. Or, as the March 2012 Friend suggests, keep track of how much time you spend on various activities and evaluate your use of time. The June 2015 Friend has some outside activities to do, as well.
Giving due credit: as usual, I read and learned from the Sunbeams Manual Lesson 18, 20 (Nursery Manual lesson 10), Gospel Principles Chapters 20, 25 and 29, and the Family Home Evening Resource Manual Lesson 3 and the mini-lesson on the Word of Wisdom, and Gospel Topics from Gospel Library on Health, Modesty, Tattooing and Body Piercing. I also enjoyed the 2010 talk O That Cunning Plan of the Evil One, by Elder M. Russell Ballard. Also, did you know that the church has a whole site dedicated to provident living? This includes caring for our physical health.
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