Using the Manual

I just finished looking over the lesson I'm going to teach on Sunday about the Salt Lake City Temple. Largely because they enjoy reading and because it's easy to frame and pace a lesson this way, I'm going to have the children read most of the lesson from the manual, making sure to lead a discussion between each paragraph to help the children understand and internalize what they read. However, there's an important part of the lesson that I won't have the children read.

A main part of the lesson is the Law of Chastity. The idea is that, in the temple, we make covenants to keep God's commandments and stay faithful to our spouse for eternity. This is, of course, very important, but it can also be somewhat awkward, especially given the age of my class. Many of them are both mature enough and immature enough for this lesson to get out of hand in a hurry if I'm not careful. Naturally, I'm going to have to choose my words carefully, or let the manual choose for me. Fortunately for me, the manual phrases the Law of Chastity part of the lesson fairly well, so I'll probably end up using much of the manual verbatim to help me teach that part of the lesson.

I'm thankful for the quality of the manual I've been provided. So many of the books and manuals we have in this church explain gospel topics so well that it would almost be foolish not to use them in our talks and lessons. Of course, when we use our manuals in such a way, we have to be careful to make sure our lessons don't become boring, and we will have to make sure we really study the material so we can learn it rather than just reading it and repeating it. Still, even with their minor drawbacks, these manuals are great tools, and I certainly plan on making good use of mine.