Purpose: To celebrate with your family about all the amazing things our bodies can do! Heavenly Father gave us our bodies and we can use them for good.
***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 1:5; Proverbs 25:28; Matthew 5:16; Matthew 16:27; John 13:34; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; Philippians 4:13; 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12; Hebrews 12:12-13; James 1:19; James 2:14-17; 2 Nephi 9:31-32; 2 Nephi 26:33; Alma 1:30; 3 Nephi 17:7; Doctrine and Covenants 19:3; Doctrine and Covenants 38:24-27; Doctrine and Covenants 58:27;
Possible Songs: Do What is Right, Hymn 237; In Our Lovely Deseret, Hymn 307; A Smile is like Sunshine, Children’s Songbook page 267; Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, Children’s Songbook page 275a; I Have Two Ears, Children’s Songbook page 269; My Heavenly Father Loves Me, Children’s Songbook page 228; My Two Little Eyes, Children’s Songbook 228; Hinges, Children’s Songbook page 277; Do As I’m Doing, Children’s Songbook page 276; A Song of Thanks, Children’s Songbook page 20a; Thanks to Our Fathers, Children’s Songbook page 20b; Fun to do, Children’s Songbook page 253; (seriously, there are sooo many songs in the children’s songbook! This list is not extensive)
Possible Materials: A mirror. This handout on using our hands at church. A picture of Christ appearing to the Nephites and a picture of Him Healing the sick. A picture of young David (I wish I could find one of him with his brothers, but I feel this is the closest). A picture of Spencer W. Kimball. A picture of Annie Oakley.
Preparation: Begin with prayer. Watch this video from President Nelson on our bodies. Ask yourself how you feel about your body. Are there negative thoughts that go through your mind about your body? Heavenly Father gave you a body to help you while here on Earth. It can do many great things. By thinking negatively about your body, you are thinking negatively about one of Heavenly Father’s best creations! Read the suggested scriptures, 3 Nephi 11:1-17. Read through the lesson, including any links, and carefully select the most relevant material for your family. Children: Watch both this and this video about Jesus appearing to the Nephites, this video about David as a boy. Have a grownup read these 2 accounts of Spencer W. Kimball milking cows (1, 2).
Lesson:
Discuss how last week’s challenge went.
Introduction: Read Doctrine and Covenants 42:42. Ask your family what it means to be idle. Why doesn’t Heavenly Father want us to be idle? Tell your family that coming to Earth and getting a body was part of the Plan of Salvation! With our bodies, we can learn to be more like Heavenly Father. If we are not using our bodies to progress, we are not taking advantage of the plan or becoming like Heavenly Father. Read Doctrine and Covenants 59:18-19. Heavenly Father wants us to use our bodies to enjoy the world around us. We can use our bodies to:
- We can use our mouth and nose to taste and smell! Have your family stick out their tongue and look at the white dots on our tongues. Those dots are called taste buds! Because of taste buds, we can taste food. Sour, salty, sweet. We can tell if something is wet or cold. We can smell. What are some things we have smelled this week? Can our nose warn us of danger? Should we eat things we do not know are safe? Can our taste buds help us know the differences between some things that look the same? What about salt and sugar? We can also use our mouth to talk and to sing! Some voices sing high and some sing low. Ask your family: Can you sing high? Can you sing low?
- We can use our eyes to see! We can read! We can find our way around our house! We can use our eyes to help our hands. Work is easier because we can see. We can also enjoy beautiful things and pretty colors. You can look for things that are lost! Hand the mirror around again and have the class look at their eyes. What do they see? Are all eyes the same color? Are our eyes always open? When do we close our eyes? Some people have eyes that do not see as well. They can have special dogs to help them see, or they walk with a cane that feels for bumps when they walk. They can read special books with raised bumps that make letters using Braille. Even though their bodies are different, they can do the same things, in a different way.
- We can use our ears to hear! We can listen to instructions and know what to do. We can hear and enjoy music. We can know if something is close even if we cannot see, like an animal making animal sounds, or which person in our family is talking. We can be warned about danger with smoke detectors or horns honking. We can listen at church and during conference and learn and listen to stories about Jesus! Have your family look at their ears in the mirror. Tell your family that there is part of their ear that they cannot see. It is inside the holes. We need to be careful not to listen to too loud of sounds or to stick anything into our ears because we could really hurt them! Some people have ears that do not work well. Sometimes they can use a hearing aide. People that cannot hear well often cannot talk well, either, because we learn to talk from listening to those around us. They often use sign language to talk and understand others. There are lots of different languages, and sign language is one way we can talk and understand each other. Tell your family you are so glad that we can communicate with people even when our ears are different or we speak different languages.
- We can use our hands for so many things! We can feel if something is soft or sticky. What other things can we feel? We can use our right hand to take the sacrament. We learn to crawl on our hands and knees when we are little. We learn to count by holding up our fingers. We can pick things up and hold things. We can wave to our friends or shake hands with others. We can clap and snap. Our hands can help us get ready for the day or play with our toys. We can bounce a ball or pet an animal. We can draw and write. We can even trace our hands! We can help others with our hands. When we are sick or need a blessing, a Priesthood holder can lay their hands on our heads and give us a blessing. Remind your family that we should never use our hands to hurt one another. You may wish to use this handout from the June 1991 to talk about using our hands at church. Explain that we need to help our hands do the right thing. Some people are born without hands! Often they learn to use their feet to help them. Our bodies are great at learning how to help us, even if we need to learn things differently.
- We can use our feet to walk and to run. We can play sports and dance. Our toes can tap and keep the beat. We can stomp and climb. We can stand on tiptoes to reach taller. What are some other ways we can use our feet? Compare feet among your family. Are some feet bigger? Does everyone have the same shape of toes? Tell your family that some people cannot feel their feet or their legs. Some people are born without or lose their feet and/or legs. These people often use wheelchairs to help them move around. They even have cars that put all the pedals by their hands so they can drive.
All of our bodies are amazing, and they are all different. Would it be a good thing if all of our bodies looked the same? What if we all sounded the same? What if our bodies were all good at the exact same thing? We would miss out on many amazing things if we weren’t different. And it would be harder to tell each other apart.
From the Scriptures: Hold up the picture of Christ coming to the Nephites. Tell your family that after Jesus died, he came to visit the Nephites. There were lots of natural disasters and the people were all trying to recover. They were scared and unsure, but Jesus comforted them. He spoke peace and he let them all touch his body, one by one. Read 3 Nephi 11:1-17 and make note of how the Nephites used their bodies to learn and understand more about Christ. First they heard with their ears. Then they saw with their eyes. Then they came closer on their feet. And then they touched his wounds with their hands. While He was there, He taught them many things. Hold up the picture of Jesus healing the Nephites. Tell your family that Jesus then asked for all the sick to be brought to him. Read 3 Nephi 17:6-10. After he healed the sick, all were in awe of his love for them. After he blessed the sick, he met with all the children. Jesus cared for and healed everyone. He didn’t only see people with flawless skin. He didn’t see people who were in perfect health. In fact, he did just the opposite. He asked to see the sick and the hurt and the blind and the different.
From the Scriptures: Read 1 Peter 3:3-4. Ask your family what they think this scripture means. Hold up the picture of David. Ask your family if they know who this is. Tell your family that Samuel the prophet was looking for someone specific the Lord wanted. He was looking for a new king! Samuel was told to go to the house of Jesse and meet with Jesse’s sons. He met with all the older boys and none felt right. He asked Jesse if there were any other sons. Jesse told him that his youngest son was caring for the sheep, but that he was just little. Samuel asked to meet with him. God told Samuel that David was the person he was sent to find! Read 1 Samuel 16:7. Ask your family what Heavenly Father cares about? Does he expect us to all be big and strong? Can we only serve the Lord if we have muscles or good looks? He reminded Samuel that how we look on the outside is not as important as what is inside.
From World History: Hold up a picture of Annie Oakley. Tell your family that Annie Oakley, whose real name was Phoebe Ann Moses, was born at a time when women were only supposed to look good and be quiet. Her father died when Annie was just a child, and her mother was a hard worker but since women didn’t make much money, she struggled to care for her children. Annie learned how to hunt and trap and sold the meat to local stores. She helped her mom make enough money. Annie was so good at shooting it caught attention! Shooting was not something women usually did. But Annie was proud of her body and her skills. She was also proud of who she was. Annie used her body for good by helping her mother.
From Church History: Spencer W. Kimball understood that he needed to use his body for good while he focused on what was inside. Hold up a picture of Spencer W. Kimball and tell your family that when he was a boy, he spent lots of hours doing chores for his family. His job was milking the cows. He decided to use his time milking to memorize scriptures and sing hymns. He also practiced his aim to squirt milk right into the kitties’ mouths. He learned and worked hard! He learned to enjoy work and always enjoyed learning. He was our 12th president of the Church.
Further Discussion:
Read about the Kite sisters and then read their article in the New Era. I’ve loved their perspective on body image. It has shaped who I am as a person. Ask your family if it changes their perspective at all. Then read Our Sacred Bodies and Rethinking Beauty from the August 2019 Ensign (this whole issue is filled with positive body image articles).
Recent Conference talks to consider in your discussion: But We Headed Them Not, by David A Bednar; We Are The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by Reyna I. Aburto; Your Divine Nature and Eternal Destiny, by Dale G Renlund; Christ Heals That Which Is Broken, by Amy A. Wright; Teaching Self Reliance to Children and Youth, by Hugo E. Martinez; Divine Love in the Father’s Plan, by Dallin H. Oaks; Our Heartfelt All, by Dieter F. Uchtdorf; Hope in Christ, by M Russell Ballard; Room in the Inn, by Gerrit W. Gong; Come and Belong, by Dieter F. Uchtdorf.
Challenge:
Challenge your family to listen to how they talk about their bodies this week. Ask them to only speak of their bodies with gratitude and reverence because Heavenly Father gave it to them. At next Family Home Evening, ask if anyone would like to talk about the blessings that came from changing how they talked and thought about their body.
Giving due credit: as usual, I read and learned from the Sunbeams Manual Lessons 17, 18, 19, 20, Gospel Principles Chapter 34, and the Family Home Evening Resource Manual mini-lessons on Listening, Work, and self-control, and Gospel Topics from Gospel Library on Diversity and Unity and Consecration.
