The Gift of the Holy Ghost

Yesterday, I taught my Primary class a lesson on the Gift of the Holy Ghost using the following object lesson I came up with while driving around Saturday with my husband. This was just in addition to the applicable scriptures and discussions presented in the manual.

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Tell the children you are going to give each of them a special gift. Call each child up and give them a cookie wrapped up in a napkin and tell them they can peek at it, but don’t show it to anyone else – it’s just for them.

Once each child has a cookie, ask the class if they like the gift. Let them taste the cookie and tell each other about their “gifts”.

Ask how they feel when they eat the cookie (answers might include warm, happy, etc…).

Once they’ve eaten their cookies, ask how they feel now that they are gone (sad, hungry, etc... are what my class came up with).

Now tell them you will give them another gift -- something even better than a cookie -- and give each child the recipe for the cookie. (My class reacted so well to this! One boy said, “That doesn’t LOOK like a gift!” He set me up perfectly!)

Tell them that a little cookie is nice, but having the recipe means that if we follow the directions we can have cookies whenever we like! (My adorable five year olds agreed this was way better than just one cookie and were so excited for their “presents”.)

Explain that before we are baptized we can still feel the influence of the Holy Ghost. It makes us feel warm, happy, peaceful, etc. Those promptings are how Heavenly Father speaks directly to each of us. But when it’s gone we might feel sad or “hungry” to have it back.

Sometimes it’s appropriate to tell others about what the Spirit has taught us. When we do, we bare our testimonies.

However, when we are baptized and receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost, if we follow the directions (scriptures, words of the prophets, etc.), we can have the companionship of the Holy Ghost whenever we want or need it!

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