Teachers Teaching in the Savior’s Way
Teaching in the Savior’s Way with Elder Uchtdorf
Sunday, June 12, 2022
Chad Strang: As a father, I think one of the most important responsibilities that I have is to teach my teenage children to recognize truths and doctrine that can be found in the scriptures that connect to them personally in their lives and in their circumstances. And that’s been a really important learning lesson for me—to be aware of the Spirit and to connect to them to be aware of their needs but, more importantly, help them to discover a love of the scriptures and understand that the doctrine can relate to their lives.
Roberta Luz Pavanelo [Subtitles]: I am a seminary teacher from Brazil. When I began to teach seminary, I really wanted to be a good teacher, and I really wanted my students to learn everything that I was teaching. So I thought about different ways to teach: lectures, some videos, playing games. And one time a student gave an opening prayer, and he asked that he could feel the Spirit during the class. And I know this is so obvious, right? We hear this all the time, but at that moment that prayer changed my heart, and I thought, “That’s what the students need. They are here to feel the Spirit.”
Tyler Harris: I am a Primary teacher. I’ve got a large class. We have some with some special needs, and, luckily, we had some great training from our Primary president, and she taught us how not every child learns the same way and that some people are very tactical and need to hold something or do something. Some people really need to learn visually and things like that. So we as the three brethren in the class really try to pray about it and think about how we can get from where our children are just climbing over each other or out the window to something they could really learn about the Savior and learn about things that would help them to be involved and engaged in the classroom. And we just had a great experience with these children to be able to really have some engaging lessons.
Kaion Constantino [Subtitles]: I am from Brazil, and I am an institute teacher. One day in an institute class during the pandemic we had to have our classes online. And I invited everybody, but, even so, only one student showed up. And the student had a lot of questions because he was a new member. And on that day, listening to the whispers of the Spirit, I was able to help and resolve many of his questions. I am very happy because today he is preparing to serve a mission.
Sina Khoza: I was recently given the assignment to speak about a very dark period in my life, which was a period of grief. And how I approached this assignment to speak was to focus on the Savior’s example. I reflected back on the many periods of sorrow that the Savior went through and how He dealt with them. I realized that, through focusing on Him and how He dealt with these personal circumstances, everything that I went through was really for my betterment. And I realized that it was all a part of a loving Father in heaven, who loves us and does so perfectly, regardless of what it is that we go through.
Lori Newbold: In my teaching, I ended up asking for more examples. I saw connections when we would talk about a doctrine, and then I would ask young women to seek connections. And one example was a young woman who I just asked, for example, “Where do you see the Savior in the sacrament?” And we had just talked about the sacrament, and she just—light bulbs went off when she talked about—when we look at the sacrament table, we are looking at His body! And she just had this moment where even though she was 17 years old, she had never connected the Savior there. And just because of that, for me personally preparing that way, I began to see Him more, and it just naturally flowed out of me.
Pandu Prasetyo: Back when I was on a mission, I learned how to always be ready to listen to the spiritual promptings of the Spirit. As I strived to listen to the voice of the Spirit, it helped me understand my investigators and helped to teach them according to the Spirit.
Tania M Diaz De Recio [Subtitles]:
As a ministering sister, as I pray for each one of my assigned sisters who I am supposed to minister to, I can feel a greater love for them. And I can also feel the love that the Savior has.
Alex Munoz [Subtitles]: We’re always trying to focus on Jesus Christ, and I have noticed that when we make the effort to focus the class on Jesus Christ, on His symbols, on—and the shadows that we see in the scriptures that represent Him, it makes the students intentionally look for Jesus Christ in the scriptures and how this impacts their lives.
Nuria Munoz: We have two older daughters that participate a lot in our study of Come, Follow Me, but our third daughter was kind of shy and wasn’t sharing much. I saw during the week that she was making drawings of what we were discussing, and I thought it would be a wonderful way to help her feel like she could contribute. So I invited her to share with us those drawings, and every week she’d have new drawings of all the things we were discussing. And then she started sharing her testimony together with those drawings and writing them down. And it was a wonderful way to help her feel like she was valued and that she could contribute in the things we were discussing and definitely helped us all to develop our testimonies.
Paola Segastume de Orellana [Subtitles]: The Savior taught us to love all our students. So I really like to be interested in their specialties, in their activities outside of the Church. I also really like to be interested in their birthdays, to learn their names well, to be able to address them as the special people they are. As special children of Heavenly Father, I care about them. If one of them does not come to the class, I personally look for them, and I am always aware of each of them.
Woodly LaFord: As a bishop, I work a lot with youth, and I believe the best way to help them is by focusing on Jesus Christ. And I do that by using the personal development program that is designed for all the youth. I have one young man who was not attending seminary, and I thought that helping him to understand the need to become like Jesus would definitely help him. So we organized an activity on the personal development. And after that activity, he comes to attend seminary regularly. So I understand that if we want the youth to grow spiritually and temporally, we can help them to focus on becoming like Jesus.
Edwin Ramirez Guzman [Subtitles]: Hello. I am a Primary teacher. I teach children. I am from Guatemala. They are all different, and some of them sometimes are very hyperactive.
And I can feel how Jesus Christ wants to teach each one in a way that is special to them. And I remember a time when one of the children was very, very restless. Really he was a little boy with a lot of energy, and I was able to invite him to be my assistant in the class. So I took advantage of that energy to be able to teach the other children. And in that way I know that Jesus Christ is with each one of us; He teaches us in very specific ways so that we may learn. I testify that Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father love each one of us. And we can feel that when we share His gospel.