Life's Journey To Perfection: 2018 Primary Sharing Time Ideas for April Week 2: Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith.

Ideas for April Week 2 LDS Primary Sharing Time,

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2018 Sharing Time Outline Theme: I am a Child of God

April 2018 Sharing Time Topic: Jesus Christ Restored His Church in the Latter Days

April 2018 Scripture: “I have sent forth the fulness of my gospel by the hand of my servant Joseph” (D&C 35:17)

April 2018 Song: Song of your choice from the Children’s Songbook

April Week 2 Topic: Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith.

Preparation:

Prayerfully study and think about what the specific needs of your primary are and how you can teach them this doctrine. The most important thing is to love those you teach and to teach them by the Spirit!! Focus on building their testimonies and helping them come unto Christ! (All printables for this sharing time can be found and printed by clicking the "Free Printable Download" button. They are free and can be printed and used for personal and church purposes)

Sharing Time Instruction:

Ask the primary children that if they didn't know something and had a question, what would they do?

IMAGES CAN BE FOUND IN THE GOSPEL ART KITS AND ON LDS.ORG SEE LINKS BELOW

Show the primary children the picture of Joseph Smith reading the scriptures. Explain that a young 14 year old boy named Joseph Smith had a question. As he was reading in the Bible he came to this guidance, James 1:5 "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him."

So what did Joseph do????

Show the primary children the picture of the first vision. Explain that in a little bit you are going to have the primary children help tell what the young boy Joseph did.

Explain that the topic for this week is, "Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith." Show the primary children the week's theme poster and invite the primary children to repeat, "Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith."

Around the room have printables with numbers are on them. (On the front will be the number and on the back the coordinating phrase. To include the younger children, have them help find the right number, then have one of the older children read the phrase)

All of the below quotes are from The Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith

#1:

"During this time of great excitement my mind was called up to serious reflection and great uneasiness. … I often said to myself: What is to be done? Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be right, which is it, and how shall I know it?

While I was laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contests of these parties of religionists, I was one day reading the Epistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse, which reads: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.”"

#2:

"Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know; for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible.

At length I came to the conclusion that I must either remain in darkness and confusion, or else I must do as James directs, that is, ask of God. I at length came to the determination to “ask of God,” concluding that if he gave wisdom to them that lacked wisdom, and would give liberally, and not upbraid, I might venture."

#3:

"In accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I retired to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty. It was the first time in my life that I had made such an attempt, for amidst all my anxieties I had never as yet made the attempt to pray vocally.

After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction."

#4:

"But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me."

#5:

"It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound. When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—“This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!”

My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join."

#6:

"I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”

He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me, which I cannot write at this time. When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven. When the light had departed, I had no strength; but soon recovering in some degree, I went home."

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Thank you so much for stopping by! I hope that these ideas were helpful. Below are the other topics for the months as well as more ideas and resources. I'd love for you to check out my Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest pages and see if there's anything on there you like!

What else have the primary children learned this month? Here are links to this month's past sharing times:

ULTIMATE LIST OF SHARING TIME IDEAS