Spiritual Strength
Faith walk
Purpose
Practice exercising faith and listening to the Spirit.
Description
Before the activity, weave a rope through a short obstacle course. This could be done outdoors using trees and other natural features or indoors using simple furniture or other items. Display a picture of the Savior at the end of the obstacle course.
Invite a leader or youth to share with the group a short message about faith. Explain that this is a silent activity in which they must heed warnings and hold tightly to the rope. Tell the youth that one leader will represent the voice of the Spirit, and let all the youth hear that leader’s voice. Guide each youth to the beginning of the rope to complete the obstacle course while blindfolded. Have the leader representing the Spirit give wise directions for the youth to follow (such as “step over the log” or “turn left”), and have other leaders attempt to deceive the youth by giving them bad directions. As the youth reach the end of the rope, remove each blindfold so they can see that they reached the Savior.
After all have had a chance to participate, invite the youth to share their impressions of the activity and discuss what they learned about exercising their faith, listening to the Spirit, and enduring to the end.
New Beginnings
Purpose
Help young women and their parents learn about the Young Women program.
Description
New Beginnings is an annual event for all young women and their parents. Young women who will reach the age of 12 in the coming year are also invited to attend with their parents. It may be held during Mutual. This event provides an opportunity for leaders to express their love for the young women, encourage parents to help their daughters in Personal Progress, and introduce new young women to the young women program.
Possible subjects to address include:
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Explanation of Personal Progress.
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Presentation of the young women theme, logo, and motto.
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Recognition of the young women and their accomplishments in Personal Progress.
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Overview of the youth theme and a discussion of activities planned for the year.
Bible customs
Purpose
Learn about and appreciate the faith of those who lived anciently.
Description
Invite someone who has studied the Bible to share with the youth how learning about customs and daily life during ancient times can help them understand the scriptures. Guide the youth in finding scriptures from the Old and New Testaments that teach about life in biblical times. Invite the youth to create something that will deepen their understanding of the scriptures. They could build household items or tools, create models of buildings, prepare a biblical meal, or re-create clothing worn by the people described in the scriptures. Discuss how this helps us understand the scriptures better.
Examples could include:
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Making a lamp (see Matthew 25).
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Cooking a Passover meal (see Exodus 12–13).
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Constructing or drawing a model of the Tabernacle (see Exodus 25–31).
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Making a phylactery (see Matthew 23:5).
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Making a winnowing fork (see Matthew 3:12).
Stand for the right
Purpose
Increase understanding of the Lord’s standards.
Description
Write down a variety of situations youth face. For example, “You go to a friend’s house and the friends you are with choose to watch an inappropriate movie. What do you do?" Put each paper in a different location or room of the church building. Divide the youth into groups, and send each group to a different station. At each station, have one youth read the situation to the group. Invite each youth to search the For the Strength of Youth booklet to find counsel about how to handle that situation. As a group, discuss experiences the youth have had in similar situations and how they have chosen to follow the Lord’s standards. Use the paper at each location to have the youth share and write down ideas for how they could respond to the situation. Then rotate stations so that all groups visit all scenarios.
Young Women in Excellence
Purpose
Recognize young women for the good things they are doing and celebrate Personal Progress.
Description
Young Women in Excellence is an annual event for all young women and their parents. It is a celebration of Personal Progress and the good things young women are doing in their lives. Each young woman shares a value experience or project she has completed during the year that exhibits excellence. These presentations may include sharing talents and skills the young women have learned. This event is usually held during Mutual at the ward level, but it may be held at the stake level.
For more details about Young Women in Excellence, see Handbook 2 (2010), 10.8.4.
Advertising our standards
Purpose
Understand and share the standards in For the Strength of Youth.
Description
Have groups of youth create commercials or advertisements (a poster like a Mormonad or meme, a video, a song, and so on) about different topics from For the Strength of Youth. Have them share what they created with the rest of the youth and others. Invite the group to share how they have been blessed as they have lived the standard depicted.
Attributes of Christ
Purpose
Develop attributes of Christ.
Description
Have youth fill out the Attribute Activity on page 126 of Preach My Gospel. Have youth identify attributes they would like to improve in their lives. Have each youth make a plan for developing his or her chosen attribute, including a long-term goal and practical exercises to do regularly to achieve the goal. Have the youth make charts that will help them follow through on the exercises. Join together to report on progress at a later time.
Book of Mormon challenge
Purpose
Strengthen testimonies of the Book of Mormon.
Description
Challenge the youth to read the entire Book of Mormon (or a selected portion) in a chosen period of time. Discuss ways they can encourage each other, track their own progress, and carefully record the impressions they have as they read. Hold a testimony meeting or devotional shortly afterward for youth to share what they learned and how immersing themselves in the scriptures affected their daily lives.
Bringing the Book of Mormon to life
Purpose
Learn creative ways to teach others about the Book of Mormon.
Description
Have youth teach one another sections or stories from the Book of Mormon in creative and engaging ways (such as with a skit, a video, or a game). Ask them to explain how this story or section helps them understand a principle of the gospel.
Find answers to your questions during general conference
Purpose
Understand how general conference can help you find answers.
Description
Before general conference, take some time during a Mutual activity or Sunday lesson to write down questions you have regarding gospel topics. As you watch conference with your family or friends, make note of any teachings or promptings that would help answer your questions. After general conference, share some of the answers you received with your family and class or quorum.
General conference quote jars
Purpose
Apply the teachings from general conference.
Description
Bring some of your favorite quotes from conference to a Mutual activity. Create jars with some of your favorite quotes from the conference. Each day for the next six months, pull a quote from the jar and ponder what it teaches. Keep a journal of what you learn.
General conference recap
Purpose
Learn from living prophets and apostles and remember what they teach.
Description
Set up a trivia game for teams of youth to answer questions about the most recent general conference—who spoke on what topic, matching photos to the names of General Authorities, and so on. Beforehand, encourage youth to take notes during conference, and allow them to refer to their notes during the game. After the game, discuss the feelings and impressions that came to the youth as they listened to general conference and what they will do as a result of the direction they received.
Keep a journal your way
Purpose
Learn how to keep a journal in a variety of ways.
Description
Hold a journaling night where you can learn different ways to keep a journal, such as traditional diaries, online journals, blogs, scrapbooks, photo albums, audio journals, video journals, and so forth. Set goals to keep a regular journal for a week, and share with your class or quorum your experiences.
Modesty fashion show
Purpose
Be able to explain and commit to live the standard of modesty.
Description
Hold a modesty clinic and fashion show. Have someone with sewing or tailoring skills demonstrate how to layer and alter clothing to make it more modest. Then have the youth model modest clothing (you might consider categories such as church clothes, formal wear, and athletic clothing). Ask each model to talk about how he or she decided to be modest and how he or she lives that commitment. Discuss why modesty is important and how we can invite the Spirit by being modest in our speech, behavior, and dress.
My favorite scripture
Purpose
Inspire one another by sharing meaningful scriptures.
Description
Have each youth bring an object that represents his or her favorite scripture. Place all the objects on a table and ask the youth to read their scripture and explain why it is meaningful to them. Invite the bishop or another leader to guess which object goes with each scripture. Then invite the bishop to share and teach about some of his favorite scriptures.
Read the four Gospels
Purpose
Gain a testimony of Jesus Christ by reading the Gospels of the New Testament.
Description
Make a plan as a class or quorum to read the four Gospels of the New Testament within a certain amount of time. (For example, you could start at the beginning of the year and finish before Easter Sunday.) You could give class or quorum members a chance each Sunday to share what they are learning and experiences they are having as they learn about the Savior. Plan an event where class or quorum members prepare a station to present what they have learned to their families or members of the community. For example, they could create stations that teach about the sermons, parables, miracles, or Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Scripture games
Purpose
Learn principles of the gospel and scripture stories in creative ways.
Description
Use a game to teach a story or principle from the scriptures. Here are some ideas:
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Read and discuss scripture passages about the armor of God (see Ephesians 6:10–17; D&C 27:15–18). Consider the significance of each piece of the armor. Build armor with your class or quorum out of inexpensive material, such as cardboard or paper. Find creative ways, such as an obstacle course, to show how this armor could protect them from spiritual danger.
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Play scripture Battleship by tying a rope between two trees and hanging long blankets from the rope so the people on one side of the blankets cannot see the people on the other side. Divide the participants into two teams and ask them to lie or sit down on either side of the rope (they can’t move after they do). Adult leaders will present challenging situations (such as “Your friend invites you to a drinking party”). The first person to name a scripture that would help them in each situation can throw a ball to the other side of the blankets. If the ball hits someone, that person is out. Continue playing until all the youth on one side of the blankets are out.
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Bake a few cakes. Divide your class or quorum into groups, and give them appropriate stories from the scriptures (such as the parable of the good Samaritan or Daniel in the lion’s den). Invite them to decorate a cake to illustrate their scripture story. Have the youth share their cakes and invite others to guess the scripture stories they have illustrated. Have those who decorated the cake share a few key scriptures from the story and teach how the principles in the story apply in their lives. Then eat the cakes.
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Play a game such as dodgeball or tag. If a youth gets tagged out, he or she can get back into the game only by quoting or paraphrasing a scripture mastery passage. To make the game more challenging, allow each scripture mastery passage to be used only once.
Sharing what we learn
Purpose
Share with others the principles we learn on Sunday and strengthen our own testimonies of those principles.
Description
Make a list of people in the ward or branch who would benefit from a visit and a brief spiritual message. The list may include less-active quorum or class members, recent converts, elderly individuals, and families. Organize the quorum or class into groups of two or three, and assign each group to visit someone on the list and share a message about something they have learned in a recent Aaronic Priesthood quorum meeting, Young Women class, or Sunday School class. Give the groups time to prepare their messages, which could include hymns, scriptures, quotations from general conference addresses, Church videos, and other Church resources. Ensure that the youth make appointments for the visits—if possible, on a Mutual night. Ask the youth to gather after their visits to reflect on their experiences. This could happen at the end of the activity night, during a future activity, or during a future class or quorum meeting.
Standards games
Purpose
Use fun ways to learn how to explain the Lord’s standards to others.
Description
Play one of the following games to help the youth learn how to explain their standards to others:
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Ahead of time, prepare cards with topics from For the Strength of Youth on them. Below each topic, list words related to that topic (for “Entertainment and Media,” you might list, “television,” “computer,” “watch,” “video,” or “movie”). Divide the youth into teams. Have a player from each team give clues to his or her team to guess the topic without the player using any of the words on the card. If the team guesses the topic in a certain amount of time, have the team member who guessed correctly use the words on the card to role-play how he or she would share the Lord’s standards on that topic with a friend (you might want to provide a situation in which the standards are being questioned). If the team doesn’t guess the topic in the required time, have the person who was giving the clues role-play using the words on the card to explain the Lord’s standards with a friend.
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Write on a piece of paper several of our standards (Word of Wisdom, Sabbath day, law of chastity, tithing, and so on) and place them in a bowl. Divide the youth up into teams. Have each team randomly select a standard from the bowl. Give them about five minutes to discuss how they can best explain and teach the standard they chose to a peer. After the teams have discussed their chosen standards, choose members of each team to represent their group in role-playing a situation in which they must explain their standard to a peer with questions. Repeat the discussions and role-playing for a few rounds.
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Have youth bring a small sample of food that can be used to represent a standard from For the Strength of Youth, such as a fruit with a peel representing modest dress. Have the youth present their examples and give mini-lessons about the standards they relate to. Ask them to tell a personal story about an experience they have had with that standard.
Standing up for the Lord’s standards
Purpose
Prepare to share with others why we choose to live the Lord’s standards.
Description
Identify several arguments people may make that are contrary to the standards in For the Strength of Youth (for example, “If we’re in love, we can break the law of chastity before marriage”). Have the youth work together to make a case for the Lord’s standards, using resources such as the scriptures and For the Strength of Youth. If possible, youth could also search for the most recent words of the living prophets on the subject. Role-play a scenario in which one of these standards is brought into question, and let the youth practice sharing their beliefs.