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Hey, I don’t think my message reached you so I thought I’d try this route so I can send you the thoughts my husband and I thought of to help you with your lesson. For everyone else who can help with ideas, she’s giving a lesson on this general conference talk and is trying to figure out a way to give it honestly without giving away her struggles with the church.
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2016/10/joy-and-spiritual-survival?lang=eng So what my husband and I came up with were:
– ask people about what things in the gospel have helped them through hard times and why they think those things helped them.
– then ask them about other things that helped them that weren’t necessarily church principles. Yoga and writing are good examples. Why did those things help?
Then you can invite people to choose something out of the list that’s something new to try if whatever they’re doing to find joy isn’t working.
Maybe just kind of discuss how difficult things are on earth and struggles are important to have so we can grow. It’s nice to feel joy though so just discussing ways to help ourselves during awful times would be useful to think on. There’s a new video on the churches facebook that they just uploaded, and I really appreciated the video! It kind of talks about how you can find the dark truths of life but still find a balance between the dark truths and the old truths. It actually was kind of applicable to going through a faith crisis. Maybe you could show it in your class if you like it, and kill some time
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JPv-B0wn6F0 Anyways, hopefully something in all this was helpful, and maybe others will have other ideas to help you! Good luck!
Possibly useful quote: President Hinkley quoted Jenkins Lloyd Jones in a Single Adult address in 1996:
Quote:“Life is like an old-time rail journey—delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed.
“The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride”
In the GC talk, Nelson said
Quote:Anything that opposes Christ or His doctrine will interrupt our joy.
This could be used to prompt a discussion about what the gospel actually is and what about it actually brings joy. You can even talk about how things in the church that may seem “good” can fall under this category under certain circumstances (good, better, best), and how we need to use wisdom and listen to the Spirit.
Hopefully she sees this before her lesson 
There was a video shown at a grief support group called something like “positive choices to make while going through the steps of grief”. I can’t remember all of the advice but the one that I do remember was essentially to bring others into your grief. Do not attempt to isolate yourself either by pretending to not be grieving or by physically shutting others out.
In the gospel we make a covenant to mourn with those that mourn….
Quote:Jerseygirl wrote:
Do not attempt to isolate yourself either by pretending to not be grieving or by physically shutting others out.
In the gospel we make a covenant to mourn with those that mourn….
For my family, in times of grief, meals were brought and people came to grieve with us at the funeral. Then, they just kinda wanted us to be over it already. It wasn’t out of pettiness or meanness. It was simple lack of experience combined with too much earnest desire to have our family be a community LDS MormonAd for How To Grieve. Too many people had opinions on a process that should have been ours.
The scripture is all about mourning with those who mourn. The assumption in that statement is that the grieving person gets to set the pace on that journey. They are not helped, comforted, or validated by the arrival of a Speed and Sprinting Coach. The hurdles of our lives are of such a height that no one can really give advice how to best clear them as we move down the track of our lives. In hindsight, I realize that my race didn’t include anyone but me on the track and a savior at the finish line. Some of my hurdles — I spent years learning how to clear them. I think God would have been just as pleased to see me crawl under them, walk around them, or pick them up and hand them off to my coach.
It was my church community that had expectations of how high and how fast I could run the course. They had never run the course themselves, but they expected me to clear the course as if I had been an Olympic-trained hurdler. I wasn’t and I didn’t.
They all left disappointed as I spent my first days of grief looking at hurdles from different angles and never even began the race. By the time I was ready to race, the stands were empty. Only my coach and the savior at the end of the track had stayed. That made it perfect.
powerful imagery AP. “The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.”
Wonderful description of a sad issue. 
to you and your family.Thank you everyone for your help and input! I really feel like I have some great ideas now and direction for my lesson. Everyone is so insightful! My lesson is not until the 27th (I always have to think about it for a couple weeks before I actually prepare) so I have plenty of time to incorporate all of your great ideas. Thanks! 🙂 I just wanted to thank everyone who gave me ideas and comments for my lesson. I was so stressed out about not saying the wrong thing, but everything fell into place. The lesson was positive and uplifting, especially to me. It make me remember why I make the effort to come to church. I had several sisters approach me afterward to tell me it is the best RS lesson they have heard in a long time and many others tell me they felt touched and uplifted. I left church feeling happy for the first time in a really, really long time. I think because I realized I have more common ground with TBM’s than I thought I did. I think the key for me is being vulnerable and revealing (without going into my FC issues) that life is a struggle for me. When I am vulnerable in an appropriate way, people can connect and we can all support each other, instead of feeling like we are in a righteousness competition with each other. No one wins that competition– we are all losers there.
Thanks for all the help. This really is a great community.
Jerseygirl wrote:I just wanted to thank everyone who gave me ideas and comments for my lesson. I was so stressed out about not saying the wrong thing, but everything fell into place. The lesson was positive and uplifting, especially to me. It make me remember why I make the effort to come to church. I had several sisters approach me afterward to tell me it is the best RS lesson they have heard in a long time and many others tell me they felt touched and uplifted.
I left church feeling happy for the first time in a really, really long time. I think because I realized I have more common ground with TBM’s than I thought I did. I think the key for me is being vulnerable and revealing (without going into my FC issues) that life is a struggle for me. When I am vulnerable in an appropriate way, people can connect and we can all support each other, instead of feeling like we are in a righteousness competition with each other. No one wins that competition– we are all losers there.
Thanks for all the help. This really is a great community.
So glad everything went so well! That’s great news!Jerseygirl wrote:When I am vulnerable in an appropriate way, people can connect and we can all support each other, instead of feeling like we are in a righteousness competition with each other. No one wins that competition– we are all losers there.
THanks for the update. Well said.We had fast and testimony meeting last week because of conference meetings coming up in our stake. We had 2 different people stand and talk about how difficult their faith struggle has been lately and they really struggle with believing lots of things in the church…but they had an uplifting message to it on how they work through their struggles and look for things to learn…in the end it shows their humility and vulnerability.
I think we all relate to that. i think that is more empathetic.
I find those lessons and those testimonies more real and heart-felt and more spiritual. I am also noticing more and more of this is becoming common in church nowadays, because so many people have family members or personal experience going through these things and also seeing that it is OK. It can be survived. It can be accepted as simply the way it is. It’s real in the church. Sweeping those feelings under the rug aren’t productive forever. There is a place for everyone at church, if we make it so.
And I think that provides those who have gone through such feelings with a unique ability and talent to be there at church for others, especially youth, who have struggles. The support we give each other in this forum can also be practiced in our wards, to various degrees of success and challenges.
It is why God let’s us wander. Because sometimes we need that experience to progress and open our minds and open our hearts. It’s all part of God’s plan.
Jerseygirl wrote:I think because I realized I have more common ground with TBM’s than I thought I did. I think the key for me is being vulnerable and revealing (without going into my FC issues) that life is a struggle for me. When I am vulnerable in an appropriate way, people can connect and we can all support each other, instead of feeling like we are in a righteousness competition with each other. No one wins that competition– we are all losers there.
I have recently come to recognize this same thing and I think it is part of being members of the same tribe. I have some significant disagreements with some things believed and taught at church. I also am in significant agreement with much of it. Sort of along the lines of focusing on what I do believe doctrinally, I can focus on what we all believe (or at least the vast majority of us profess to believe) and leave it at that. It’s how I survive at church.
As true as that is, it is a shame that the vast majority of TBM’s can’t tolerate someone expressing too much of a nuanced view (except new members will get a bit of a pass for a while) I regularly hear people express in testimony how they find comfort at church because it is a place they can go “where everyone has the same beliefs.” Exactly in those words. The world constantly assaults their beliefs, it’s fatiguing, and church becomes this place of refuge where they don’t have to worry about people challenging their beliefs all the time. All this nuanced thought is viewed as the world creeping in, a threat to someone’s sanctuary.
What’s good for the goose…
Jerseygirl wrote:The lesson was positive and uplifting, especially to me. It make me remember why I make the effort to come to church. I had several sisters approach me afterward to tell me it is the best RS lesson they have heard in a long time and many others tell me they felt touched and uplifted.
This recognition is very important to reflect on…I think. There are times it is worth it and good for us, I think. We can find ways to stay and find benefit to staying, even if underneath not everything is hunky-dory.LookingHard wrote:As true as that is, it is a shame that the vast majority of TBM’s can’t tolerate someone expressing too much of a nuanced view
Perhaps that’s true LH. Perhaps it is also more tolerable when nuance has the appropriate tact, timing and dose to make it digestible. You can build up social capital, and it can be tolerated.
At then end of the day…it is about how you handle you at church…regardless of how others handle themselves.
nibbler wrote:church becomes this place of refuge where they don’t have to worry about people challenging their beliefs all the time.
I think this is hugely important too. Because some people are seeking reassurance, affirmation of belief, and solace of support…some are really not wanting GD class to be debating new ideas and challenging ideas with nuance thinking…they’re too exhausted. They just want to sit through church…feel good…go home. Understanding that is their place while in church…it isn’t kind to always force them off that platform.
I may not think like TBMs…but that doesn’t mean everyone else needs to think like me. Article of Faith 11.
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