Welcome back, you guys.

This is the creative side of week nine.

There might be no better week to have object lessons than when you're

teaching Isaiah because it's hard, you guys, especially to teach it lightly.

You know, we're just trying to fit it into little bits of scripture study

and short lessons and that's hard.

So I think having object lessons that reinforce Isaiah's.

Principles will help you a lot.

So, let me walk you through the supplies list that you need for these three object

lessons, and then hopefully inspire you to just find cool, creative ways to teach

what Isaiah was trying to teach to us.

It's just a way that we can liken the scriptures onto us, right?

By having weird things to work with.

Okay, first and foremost, I wanted to create a game that would allow you

to work through the words of Isaiah.

This is actually a game that I first made in 2020, and now I've

revamped and added to and made it.

even better.

It's called, well, I call it greater the words of Isaiah.

It's basically a game kind of like slap C.

If you've ever played slap C before, it's got a similar feel.

It will allow your kids to read and look at the words of Isaiah on purpose.

Like they'll want to, and so that they can win the game.

So I'm going to walk you through how to play it in just a second.

So for that one, you don't need any supplies other than.

Cardstock and the printable, you'll be good to go.

Second one.

Okay.

I think it's fascinating how when Isaiah talks about the latter days, he talks

about Zion being built at the tops of the mountains and people coming up.

He talks about a word.

He says they will flow up.

And I found myself.

Intrigued by the idea that things can flow up and fight against gravity.

And I wanted some way to teach that in a cool way, mostly because I feel like

there's really cool spiritual application.

There are lots of things we do in our life that we spiritually flow up.

We find ways to set aside.

The gravity of this fallen world and we ascend.

And the way we're going to do that is with a cool paper towel experiment.

So for this one, you really just need water, a little bit of food coloring.

I'm holding this very delicately.

You need two cups, one that's a little shorter and one that's taller.

If you want to do this fancier, watch the rest of the object lesson.

I'll show you how you can do it with Lots of different colors, but the

simplest and fastest way is this one.

You just need a tall cup and a short cup, a little water, food coloring,

and then just a simple paper towel.

You'll be good for that one.

Okay, third one.

There's that key phrase where Isaiah teaches that in the latter days there will

be some who call good evil and evil good.

They'll call light darkness and Darkness, light, and I wanted

some way to focus in on that.

And one of my favorite ways to teach that principle of the

deceptions of the adversary comes when you talk about fishing.

So if you have fishing gear, you could totally teach this with

the supplies you have on hand.

If you don't have that, or you're just looking for a

way to add a little bit more.

Fun and game time into your, you know, lesson or your family's scripture study.

That's when you're going to want the printable because basically you guys

I've reinvented the fishing game.

So this is a fishing game that you're going to play as a family in order

to help you understand The tricks of the adversary, what the Book of

Mormon teaches us about his strategies and how we can defend against them.

So for this one, you just need a printable, you're going to need, I used

photo paper on mine, but you can use cardstock or even copy paper as well.

And then you need some line, I actually use real fishing line so

that it wouldn't tangle too much.

And then some paperclips and a magnet.

So if you did the butterfly activity from last week, you probably already

have all those supplies you need on hand.

So if you get those things set up and then you'll be good to go and come on back and

I'll teach you how to pull each one off.

The Savior himself is going to tell us that great are the words of Isaiah.

And then next week in chapter 25, Nephi is going to tell us

that they're hard to understand.

And those two things together make it tough, especially in a

family setting or in a classroom where you have limited time.

It's hard to teach Isaiah.

So I'm trying to give you as many tools as possible to help

your kids study it on their own.

I don't think it's very likely that they'll be eager to study

it by themselves, but I do think playing a game makes them study

it without them even noticing.

It's almost like giving them a green smoothie when you play this game.

Let me explain why.

When you open up this cute little box, when you make the printable,

you'll put all the cards in this one box, and inside you're going to

find two different kinds of cards.

First, you're going to find these little scroll cards.

They're made with different colors, just to be cute, doesn't mean anything.

But on each of these scroll cards, there is one verse of a Book

of Mormon reference to Isaiah.

Usually, I've pulled out most of the familiar ones, but there's

also a few odd ones, too.

in the mix, you're going to deal four of these out to every player.

They're going to put them out in front of them face up.

And their goal by the end of the round is to get rid of all four of those cards.

The way they do that is by matching them to a category card in the middle.

So that's the second kind of card you're going to find in your game.

So you'll see one like this, for example, it says find a verse that

mentions something in the sky.

So your kids are now going to look through the four.

Isaiah verses that they have in front of them, and they're going to look for

any word that might reference sky, a bird, a mountain, a cloud, the sun.

I've deliberately designed the game so that there are many

matches to every topic card.

It took a while you guys, but it should be totally playable and easy.

What's fun about this game is as they find something and they match it,

let's say they slap it down in the center because they found something

that matches with sky, then they can explain what they found, what the verse

says, and everybody else gets to vote.

You know, if there's any contest about whether that's a good verse

for something that matches with sky, you all get to talk about it.

The reason I like that is because then your kids are reading

those scriptures out loud.

You're talking about what they might mean and your kids get a chance to

hear those verses over and over again.

It also gives you a chance to answer questions that they might

have about what things might mean.

And so I tried to give you lots of tools to work with.

When someone slaps their card down and they're the first one down, they

get to leave that card in the center.

And now they just have three left.

And now they start a new topic card and you play it again.

I would recommend if possible, that you have a moderator.

If you, if you're playing with mixed ages, you might want a moderator who

will read the card and then set it down because sometimes it's easy for

the person who reads the card to, you know, see it first, but it'll help

you if you have a mixed ages, but over the course of playing the game over

several rounds, once they get out of their four cards, they, you start, you

shuffle up the cards and you play again.

So that by the time you've played three or four rounds, even just in 10

minutes of time, you're able to recite verses that they didn't know before.

They're able to understand symbols that they might have.

Not enough connected in the past.

Surprisingly, it's a game they wanted to play.

Like, when I wrapped it up after we took photos, my kids wanted to keep

going and see who was gonna win.

Like, there's enough fun in the game to keep your kids engaged and enough

learning in the game to really help them understand the words of Isaiah.

And since the Savior himself told us how important that is, I think playing

a 10 minute game, if that helps, that's a, that's a win in my mom book.

To me, one of the most fascinating prophecies of Isaiah this week is when

he says, In the latter days, nations and people will flow up to come where Zion is.

They will want the temple of God and they will flow up towards it.

Something about defying gravity like that is just fascinating to me.

And so I found myself digging and searching to see what that might mean.

And I read a lot of different scholars interpretations, but one of my favorites

was this idea of how we do this.

We spiritually defy gravity like this all the time.

Anytime we choose to set down the natural man and choose to do the.

the harder right instead of the easier wrong.

We're basically flowing uphill.

You know, we're defying the natural man gravity and we're

choosing something better.

We're choosing to go up.

What I love is anytime we defy gravity like that, we know that the atonement

of Jesus Christ must be at play.

Because we, in our natural state, can't do it by ourselves.

So he fuels us and allows us to, you know, push off the laws of

physics and accomplish big things.

And I wanted some very visual way for my kids to get that, so that's where

this water experiment comes from.

I can't hold it up, it's a little bit tricky, but basically all you're trying

to show is that water can flow up if given the right environment and the right tools.

To set it up, you're just gonna take a shorter glass.

I would just put one drop of food coloring at the bottom.

You really don't want A ton of food.

You want just a little bit enough to color the water so that you can see it.

And then you're going to fold up a paper towel.

We took, you know, basically what is a half sheet of a paper towel and we

just cut it so that it's long enough to go from the bottom of one cup and

then hook over the top of the long cup.

You're kind of just making like a shepherd's crook or a candy cane

kind of shape so that it can have its end at inside the tall cup.

And then you're can go up.

It seems like it shouldn't but When capillary action is at play, it can.

So you're going to pour some warm water into your cup.

Since there's already a drop of food coloring at the bottom,

it will color it automatically.

And immediately as you pour it, you'll start to see that color seep up.

It'll travel through the paper towel.

It gets pulled and over the course of time, it comes into that tall cup.

It doesn't happen immediately.

In fact, it takes time.

The first 10 seconds.

You see the water moving and you're like, Oh, this is going to fill the whole cup.

It's going to be awesome.

And then it slows and it's almost imperceptible as it changes.

In fact, the first experiment I did with this, when I was seeing if I could

even pull this off, nothing happened.

And I was like, Oh, it's broken.

It didn't work.

Or I must've cut the towel wrong.

I must've done something wrong.

And so I set it down on the kitchen windowsill and figured

I'd work on it again the next day.

When I came back the next morning, there was like two inches of

red water in the tall cup.

Like over the course of the evening, the night it had, all the water had pulled

up from that short cup, traveled totally up and gone into the tall cup, and

that's what Isaiah's trying to teach us.

He's saying, all those things are available to you.

Water can flow up, hearts will pull up.

What's powerful to me about that is I think we see that with missionary work.

Sometimes we hesitate to share the gospel 'cause we worry that it'll feel like

a burden to someone or that we'll try.

We're trying to judge them.

What these scriptures teach is, you know, our hearts, especially that light of

Christ that is in us, it wants to go up.

There's this beautiful devotional, it's a BYU devotional called Something about

why mountains something like that.

I give you a link to one of their shorts You know, like it's a two or three minute

video about it, but he talks about why we are inclined to go up What is it in us

that is divine that desires that the tough we want the hard climb We want the joy

that comes from accomplishing something so great And I think you can kind of show

that with this object lesson I would tell you that if you are If you wanna take

this to the next level and then you have a little more time on your hands, you

can also do this with multiple colors.

So in this one I took just those conduit cups.

They're kind of like, I don't know, they maybe hold like a half a cup of of liquid,

and I put four of those on a plate and then I put one elevated in the center.

To do that, I just cut off the bottom of one cup and flipped it upside down so

that I could nest the other cup inside it.

I wanted.

Almost like a mountain feel where you had something high at the top and then

these other cups that would flow into it.

So I did a different color in each cup and then did the same thing.

I created a little paper towel loop and I let them just seep in.

The one thing I learned is the shorter your cups are and the higher that water

line is the faster this process goes.

So for me when I did the colored cups, we got water in that center

cup within 10 minutes, 20 minutes.

In fact, by the time a couple of hours had passed, we had several inches

of this beautiful blue water that had kind of nested in the center.

So either way you do it, my hope is that you can show your kids that

water can defy the laws of physics when given the right environment.

And so can they spiritually, we can push off this natural man world and

we can ascend when we use his tools, especially the gift of the atonement of

Jesus and we are channeled through his.

direction, we can accomplish things that seem impossible.

And this object lesson will help you show it.

You guys, we live in kind of a weird world where lots of people around

us call evil, good, and good, evil.

Lots of people around us call darkness, light, and then

assume that light is darkness.

It's a hard world to live in at times, but Isaiah warned us about it.

He saw this coming in our day and warned us that this would be the case.

And so we would need.

to understand how to discern what is true.

And then he teaches you how to seek out truth, how to turn to

prophets and scripture and personal revelation to know what is true.

And I wanted to reinforce that with my kids.

So that's why we have this fishing metaphor.

The reason I think about fishing, when I think about this need for discernment is.

Lures, you know, fishing lures are designed for this special intent.

They're designed to package something that is harmful, even

deadly, in a shiny, pretty shell.

And really good fishermen are able to make just the right lure, you know, they make

just the right bait or just the right fly based on the size of the river, based on

the kind of fish they want to catch, based on the temperature and the wind speed.

Like.

Really good fishermen can find a way to make just the right lure that will

catch what they're hoping to catch.

And I think the adversaries like that too.

In fact, when I was searching this week about that verse, about

making good things evil and evil things good and sweet and bitter.

And one of the, one of the conference talks that popped up

for me was Elder Bednar's talk about the cheetahs and the topis.

So you can go in the notes and I give you some links into there, but

I think there's something really valuable about understanding.

Those tricks of the adversary that he is strategic like that, that

he's always a predator, but that we can be on the defensive and that

light always pushes back darkness.

So to make this fun and sort of engaging, my hope is that you'll

teach your kids about fishing lures.

If you have tackle, you have stuff in your basement somewhere, go get it

and teach your kids about that idea.

If you don't, or if you just want to do a game, then you're going

to want to pull out the printable.

So this week on the printable, I made Basically, the updated

version of the fishing game.

You know how you've probably played at a carnival or something, the fishing

games, and they're always so boring.

I wanted to up the game just a little bit.

So I've created a magnetic version.

First off, you're going to have this cute little lure.

There's lots of different colors to choose from.

There's also this little spinning.

printable that has the scripture on it.

And then at the bottom, there's a hook.

But in the past, I've made this with like paper clips and made a real hook.

This time I decided to make a magnetic hook, you guys.

And the reason is because it makes the fishing game a lot more fun.

So inside this part of the printable sandwiched in there is one of those

flat little neodymium magnets, just like we used last week.

And then I attached the whole thing to Fishing line, and then just

wrapped it around a tube of cardstock.

There's nothing fancy about this, but this creates a reel that you can cast.

So this is when you're gonna get your fish, you guys.

So in the printable, you also have all these fish.

I think there's five of them total.

You're going to cover them with paperclips and then you're going

to toss them out on the floor.

In fact, for our family, I thought it was most fun if you also put a whole

bunch of paperclips out on the floor.

That way, every time you cast, you catch something, you know, you always catch

at least a few straight paperclips, even if you don't catch the fish.

So for us, I had the two boys battle it out and they were casting

and trying to catch the fish.

If they got a paperclip, it was one point.

If they got a fish, it was 10 points.

And I just gave them a time limit to see how much they could catch.

What made it fun is I feel like it's a way to talk to your kids

about the tricks of the adversary.

What does he do?

How do you see that in our life today?

Like you can go in the notes and you can read Elder Bednar's talk.

There's even some quotes from President Nelson about this, but

he talks to us about how if you are prepared, you don't need to be afraid.

If you know what the lure is, if you know what his tricks are,

you don't need to be afraid.

If you have the Holy Ghost with you, you have discernment to know.

What's real and what isn't.

And that's what he's trying to teach us.

So my hope is that as you just fish and play and have fun together,

that you can talk about those scriptures and help them understand.

In fact, if you look at each fish, each one of them has a little scripture

reference on their belly somewhere.

Each of these references is a Book of Mormon verse that teaches you

something about the adversary, his strategies, his plans, what his.

So as your kids catch one of the fish and earn some points, maybe have them open

their scriptures and teach us something about the adversary's deceptions so

that as we head out into this big Wild world where truth seems relative, we'll

know what is real and what is not.

We'll know where to turn and how to avoid his tricks and traps.

He's been doing them for generations, you guys.

They're not new.

So we should be able to defend against them.

If we, if we keep each other informed and do the best we

can to know what is out there.

Thank you for being here, you guys.

That's it for week nine.

I wanted to end with this little thought from Elder McConkie.

He says, If, as many suppose, Isaiah ranks with the most difficult of the prophets to

understand, his words are also among the most important for us to know and ponder.

His prophetic words can and should shine brightly in the heart

of every member of the Church.

My hope is this week, they'll shine a little brighter.

I think it's a line by line approach, right?

We're working on it.

Get into the verses.

If you need extra help, open up the notes.

There's a reason there's 30 plus pages of notes this week.

It's because I wanted you to be able to go to any chapter, any

verse, and get some guidance.

Some maybe from me, but most of it will be from conference talks that I read

and studied that helped shed some light on what Isaiah meant in those verses.

So hopefully that will help you.

If you need extra help, either with the insights or with the object lessons,

you're welcome to join me on the live.

So that's Monday morning at 10 a.

m.

Mountain time on gather.

mecmom.

com.

If you just go under the events tab, you can RSVP for the live.

If you can't catch Monday morning, if that's not a good time for

you, you can also watch it later.

It's where we chat about the insights and talk about any tips and tricks

I might have for the object lesson.

So it's a good one to watch if you need some help.

But otherwise, I think you've got plenty to work with.

So get into the words of Isaiah.

I promise they can be a delight to you.

Maybe not as delightful as Levi sees them, but we're working our way up.

You guys, I think between this week and next week, you'll find some key moments

that will delight and surprise you.

And I can't wait to hear all about them.

So share them with me.

All right, you guys have a good week and I'll see you back next week for week 10.