Because of a minor change of schedule, I will be teaching my primary class again next week. (My teaching partner and I usually alternate weeks.) This week, the lesson is about the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and other early saints being sent out as missionaries to proclaim the Gospel to all the world. The lesson manual shares several stories about these missionaries, highlighting some of the miracles and successes they experienced.
Yet, this subject matter doesn't really grab me, and I'm not sure how helpful it'll be in accomplishing the purpose of the lesson: "To increase each child’s desire to be a missionary and share the gospel with others." I can't promise that they'll see the same kind of success the first Apostles saw, and I'm not sure they'll even find the stories interesting, let alone inspiring. Maybe I'll be able to make the stories seem interesting, or maybe I should take a different approach altogether.
Since the purpose of the lesson is to help the children want to be missionaries, maybe I'll focus the lesson on explaining why they would want to do that. I could talk about the blessings involved, both for them and for those they'd be teaching. I could mention the possibility of success and miracles, using the stories in the manual as examples, but I'd also talk about the smaller miracles that they're almost guaranteed to experience, like gaining a stronger testimony, creating a stronger connection to the spirit, and helping extend the blessings of the Gospel to others. The future missionaries in my Primary class may not convert as many people as the early Apostles did or see the same kinds of miracles the early Apostles saw, but there are other good reasons to serve.
Of course, I will have to cover the history in the lesson, so I'll have to at least mention that thousands of people were converted across Europe, but converting thousands of people or getting people ready to be baptised within the first week in the field are not the main goals of missionary service. A missionary's purpose isn't to baptise as many people as possible, but to "invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel." If a missionary does that, they were successful, whether they baptised anyone or not.
In short, I may have to deviate from the lesson manual a little bit this time. I'm sure I'll use the manual, and I'll certainly cover the main points in it, but I'm just not sure how important it is for my primary kids to learn the details of these old missionary stories. I'll seek the Lord's direction as I prepare this lesson, and I'll try to accomplish the given purpose of the lesson. I just might not use all the stories in the lesson to do it.
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