Welcome back everybody.

This is the creative side of week eight.

So I'm going to give you three simple object lessons to keep your kids

guessing and help you find fun, happy ways to teach the gospel to your kids.

These doctrines that Jacob taught, the echoes of Isaiah and

Nephi's writings, and even Lehi's writings, they are joyful writings.

So we should teach them with Excitement and joy, and I'm hoping to give

you some tools to help you do that.

We walk you through your supplies list first, as always, and then I'll break down

each one so that you know how to teach it in your kitchens or in your classrooms.

Okay, we're going to begin talking about the gathering.

That's such a predominant theme in all those writings of Isaiah,

and that's basically what Jacob is using as a framework to say,

You don't need to be afraid.

We're part of this covenant connection.

You don't need to fear.

So he's going to help reinforce this message of the gathering.

And I wanted some way for my kids to get that as well.

There's a really fun, easy, fast way to do it.

And you just need a few supplies.

First thing you're going to need is you're going to want

a latex balloon of some kind.

It helps a little bit if it's a light color.

So, you know, any kind of white, light, yellow, anything

like that will work great.

Then you also want some salt and pepper just.

Whatever you have in your pantry already is great.

You don't need a ton of it.

And then you need a bowl full of water, ideally a bowl that's just

slightly bigger than your balloon.

And I'll show you what to do with that in just a second.

Second one, you guys, you know my love of fire and I haven't incorporated

fire hardly at all this year.

So I thought it must be time, especially this week, because Isaiah is going to talk

about Walking by the light of your own sparks, and if you guys remember this from

2020, this is where our fire love began.

It's why we have a fire in our logo, you guys.

So this is what you need for this one.

It's very simple.

You just need steel wool, you guys.

Just, you're gonna look in the painting aisle of your hardware

store, Walmart sometimes, any of those kind of areas will have it.

And you just need a good section of it.

You're gonna fluff it up like this.

So it's kind of like the scratchiest cotton candy you've ever seen.

I would just recommend that you do this part because it can kind of,

Jab under your fingernails if little kids are doing the stretching.

If you want to light it in the traditional way, you can just grab a lighter.

If you want to do it in a more exciting way, you just need a nine volt battery.

Grab those supplies and you'll be able to teach Isaiah's words in a whole new way.

Okay, third one.

This one, I really wanted to touch on the idea of the infinite atonement.

It's hard to come up with an object lesson that will help you teach such a

huge topic, but one of the talks that I read was from Elder Callister, and

he talked about gravity and how the atonement can be taught using gravity.

So we're actually going to pull from his talk and do it in this really cool way.

For the supplies on this one, let me, I'll walk you through how to

teach it in a second, but supplies wise, you'll need a few things.

First, you're going to need the printable.

We're basically going to create these little Butterfly gardens is

basically what I would call them.

Um, for me, the easiest one I found to use, we tried many different things.

You just need a cup with a lid.

So for us, like, I went to Swig, you guys.

You can get these at McDonald's, if you can get orange juice, wherever.

Or you could go buy some on Amazon.

But you need a cup with a lid.

And then you're also going to need a strong magnet.

Kind of like this.

You won't want a craft magnet for this one.

Like those black little round ones.

Those are not going to be strong enough.

You really do need one of these.

Neodymium magnets.

They're not hard to come by.

You can find them at Walmart.

You probably have some in your office somewhere.

Um, you need one that's got a decent amount of strength to it.

Then you also need paper clips, some thread, and then the printable

of these gorgeous butterflies.

And I'll tell you what you're going to do with them.

It will help you teach about what this gift really is and

why it is So full and powerful.

I think you're going to love it.

Okay, gather those supplies and then we'll get started.

There's a really good chance that your kids have heard a lot about the gathering.

I think all of us have, and that's a really good thing.

It's because we're living at the time of this prophecy being fulfilled.

When the Book of Mormon came forth, it is the sign to all of us that

God's children are being gathered.

And we're all invited to be a part of that work.

So I think it's really important to have a few different object

lessons to help our kids.

What's hard, I think, about teaching the Great Gathering is our kids need

to know a little bit of Old Testament history to understand why things

were scattered in the first place.

It's hard to appreciate the miracle of the gathering if you don't

understand that things were scattered.

And if you're like me, and your Old Testament knowledge isn't

always, like, super sharp, then it can get a little hard to teach it.

So that's why the notes are written as the way they are.

One of the articles I found, I think it was from a new era.

I can't remember how many years ago, it's written down in the notes, but it actually

articulated this in a very digestible way.

Like it walked through the history briefly.

It talked about what the covenant was.

What the promises were to Abraham Isaac and Jacob and then it breaks down why

things happen the way they did how the ten tribes Were scattered how the

rest of the Jews are scattered Where they ended up and how the promise of

the gathering will be carried out So you can find all of that in the notes.

I used their Framework as a kind of a basis for this You're basically going

to kind of walk through that story.

So you're going to need salt and pepper, like I talked about.

You're going to talk about how in your pantry right now, you probably have two

containers of salt and pepper, right?

And they are divided on purpose.

They are just different and they do different things.

And so for me, in this analogy, at least the salt represents the world and this

pepper represents the children of Israel.

So you're going to take this salt and you're going to dump out, I don't know,

a quarter of a cup or so on the Like a dinner plate, and just kind of talk to

your kids about how this is the world.

This is the Gentiles, the others that are not the children of Israel at the time.

And then you're going to talk about the scattering.

So again, you're going to use that article, take some of the

scripture references that they list, and help your kids understand

why the Jews were scattered.

And this is when you sprinkle pepper all over that salt.

You just want it to kind of sit on the top.

And then you talk about the course of time that happens, that things

get mixed together over time.

And this is when you're going to ask your kids like, okay, what if I wanted to just

get the pepper all back together again?

How would I do it?

And it will look virtually impossible, right?

Because they're mixed and they're so tiny.

Like, how could we possibly?

separate them.

But what Jacob promises, and what Isaiah promised, is that God will gather.

He will take every single pepper flake and he will get it in one spot.

So now you're going to demonstrate how you do that.

That's when the balloon comes in.

So, you're going to fill a bowl, like maybe this size bowl,

like a salad bowl, with water.

Then you're going to take a balloon and you're going to

separate your salt and your pepper.

So, all you do for this, guys, is just a static electricity experiment.

You're going to take a wool sock, or if you have fake fur at your

house, or you could use your hair.

We just found that got a little crazy after a little while, but you're going to

create a static charge on this balloon.

And then you're going to hover the balloon over that plate of salt and pepper.

And you'll hear a change immediately.

As soon as that balloon comes close, you don't want it to

touch the salt and pepper.

You want to hover above it.

the salt and pepper flakes will jump, they'll jump to the surface

of that balloon because they're attracted to that static charge.

What's interesting is you'll get a lot more pepper than you'll get salt

because the pepper flakes are lighter.

They're just different and so they separate.

Then you take that balloon, you dip it in water and all the pepper flakes will float

at the top because they're hydrophobic and the salt will sink to the bottom

or just get, you know, Into the water.

And so you will, over the course of time, can separate.

You dry off the balloon, you do it again.

Or if you're in a classroom setting, you could do this

with a whole bunch of balloons.

Or if you don't have a balloon on hand, or if that's hard, or you're worried

about them messing around too much, you can also use a plastic spoon.

Like a, you know, throw away disposable plastic spoon.

And accomplish a lot of the same idea.

But the goal here is that you can talk to your kids about the process of gathering.

That I didn't, I couldn't put that balloon over the plate and get every

scrap of pepper up in one shot.

It's gonna take a lot of us.

It's gonna take a long time and a concerted effort to continually

be charged so that we can draw people to Jesus Christ.

It will take time and we are right in the thick of that time right now.

And this is when you can talk to your kids about President Nelson's challenge.

Period.

invitation from President Nelson is to be a part of this great last work.

Because this is not just a work of gathering, gathering people.

This is a work of preparing for the second coming of the Savior.

This has to occur before the Savior comes again.

And so President Nelson has encouraged us to, you know, get it going.

Be a part of this work.

And if you get a chance, talk to your kids about what that looks like.

How can they be involved?

What can they do as missionaries right now to begin to gather Israel and to

be a part of this great, mighty work?

It's just a fun way to teach it.

All right, you guys, it's time, time to bring the fire into 2024.

So this was when we did this object lesson for the first time back in 2020.

This was the first time I had used fire to teach my kids.

And I gotta tell you, something about that experience taught me a lot.

I learned very fast that I could get my kids engaged in the scriptures if I just

found ways that they didn't see coming.

And something about a mom choosing to teach them how to light fires,

they did not see that coming.

So they still remember this object lesson to this day.

And it's just one that dazzles.

You're, you're just going to love it.

Okay.

So for this one, you're basically trying to teach what Isaiah was

teaching the people and what Jacob was teaching his people.

He's inviting them to come close to the true light of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He wants them to have this big, bright light in their lives.

And instead, they're choosing something so much smaller.

Isaiah compares it to sparks.

And he basically says, you're walking by the light of your own fire.

You're kindling these sparks.

And it's just sad.

You know, he can see that they are Living so far beneath their privileges

and I wanted some way to help my kids get the limited light of sparks.

In fact, what I really like about that reference is that sparks not

just have a low like lumen count, like they don't put much light into the

world, but they also are so temporary that they just can't last and that's

what the object lesson shows you.

So, like I mentioned, you're gonna get steel wool.

You're gonna want several of these because it's just too cool.

You'll want to do it a few times.

and you're going to put it on a safe space.

These will spark a little bit.

So you might get a little bit of dropping of heat onto your surface.

So if I were you, I would get a metal cookie sheet or something like that.

Or if you need to, you could go out on concrete or something and

then put your little puff cloud of sparking material, the steel

wool, into some kind of container.

A cereal bowl, something that's, you know, obviously heatproof, but

ideally something they can see through.

If you might have one that's glass, that's even better, just because

if they can see all the sparks.

It's just cooler.

So you put it in a small container of some kind, and then you're going

to let your kids light it on fire.

So you can either touch the steel wool with a lighter and then watch what

happens, or if you're feeling more adventurous, you can take a nine volt

battery and let those two prongs touch the steel wool and it will also ignite a fire.

Catch them totally off guard.

But the idea here is really simple.

As they watch those flames spread, actually I shouldn't say flames, it

actually never bursts into flames.

It doesn't produce that much light.

It just sparks.

You're going to see that spark cover the entire thing.

Sometimes you can take your lighter or your battery and you can touch

another place after the sparks go out and you can try to reignite it.

I actually would do this as many times as you can.

And talk to your kids about how each time you light those sparks.

It gets, it has less and less potential to create light because portions

of that steel wool are burned and they can't ever be reignited again.

So it's just this slow atrophy.

It breaks down and it has, by the end you can tap that battery or that

lighter everywhere and nothing lights.

And that's what Jacob was trying to warn us about.

Whatever we look towards, whatever lights we turn towards instead of the light of

Christ, if we turn to, to get comfort in other sources, or if we turn to get.

You know, the popularity or the wealth of the world, it just can't light our way.

It can't offer us what we need to actually move forward because

that light goes out so fast.

And it doesn't have the permanence that real light has.

So I would do it over and over again.

Like let your kids experience that limited light.

If you're in a place that you can darken all the room, do that.

And show them how little light, like they probably can't read a

page of text that's six inches away with the light of those sparks.

It doesn't, it can't do what the light of Christ can.

And it's one of those object lessons that your kids will Always remember,

they'll remember what Sparks looks like, look like, and they'll want

something brighter and more lasting.

I think you're going to love it.

We've done many, many object lessons on the atonement over the years.

Like if you go on the site and you search object lesson atonement, you'll

probably get several that pop up.

This one's all new because I really liked this one facet of

the atonement that Jacob did.

Thank you.

Focused on that without it.

We have nothing we will break down into dust.

Like that is his he's trying to help us understand how desperately we need

this great gift from Jesus Christ.

And I just loved the visuals of it.

Maybe especially because I read that talk from Elder Callister.

It's called the atonement of Jesus Christ.

And in it, you might remember it.

He talks about a man jumping out of a plane and then on his way to falling.

He's like, oh, wait, I think I want to go back, you know, and even if he.

Really wants to return to the plane if he's already jumped the laws of gravity

takeover and the same kind of thing applies to us He's basically saying

like with the fall of men We we came to this inevitable end like there is

a force working on us where now we can die and there is no There is no getting

around that, unless a Redeemer is given.

When the Messiah was given, when this great gift of the Atonement

of Jesus Christ was offered and planned by our Heavenly Father,

it is this way for us to get lift.

In fact, in Elder Callister's talk, he talks about that man who

all of a sudden realizes he has a parachute on his back and can pull

the string and he can be saved.

You know, it's that feel I want my kids to get.

So I give you some links in the notes to that talk and some great quotes from it.

But then I wanted to create an object lesson that could

help you walk through it.

You can actually use this object lesson in two different ways.

So let me show you the simplest way.

First, you're going to create butterflies.

These are butterflies that can move.

In fact, I call it fluttering butterflies.

Cause that's basically what happens here.

If you can see on here, when I move the magnet around, those butterflies

flutter, they move and they stay.

they stay elevated, even though they shouldn't be able to.

They're made of paper, right?

And they, the string isn't attached to the top.

They shouldn't be able to stay.

But because there is a magnet at the top and a paper clip at the

top of my thread, that force of magnetism holds those butterflies

aloft and allows them to move freely.

But what's really simple to teach your kids is, as soon as I take

that magnet away, The inevitable result is that they fall.

They simply cannot, on their own, stay aloft.

And the same thing applies to us.

We have that same situation where we are dependent on the Savior.

It's why Jacob is rejoicing when he teaches about the

Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Because it's evidence that our Heavenly Father loves us.

That our savior loves us, that they offer this great gift so that we can

stay afloat, that we don't have to be afraid, that we'll be resurrected, that

we have freedom from death and from hell.

That's the promise.

So in this object lesson, you can teach it with the butterfly garden like I did.

If your kids get to the point where The butterflies have fallen.

You simply flip the cup over, put the magnet back on the bottom, and then

reorient the whole thing back up again.

Um, you can teach it with this cup.

Like I said, this is just a take out container cup, or if

you want to, you get a bottle.

For example, Violet and I found these bottles for a dollar at

Walmart, so we bought these.

But if they have a lid kind of like this, then it's a little easier to

put the magnet at the very bottom and, you know, demonstrate how the

butterflies can flutter around inside by just moving that magnet around.

The only downside of this one is because it doesn't have a flat top.

I can't make the butterflies drop down, but there is another cool way

to demonstrate that same effect.

So for this one, you're going to create a string of butterflies, take the same

printable, you're going to use a paper clip, you'll bend it in half and then

attach just a simple thread to it.

And then you're going to attach butterflies.

For us, we did our butterflies front to back just so we could

sandwich the thread between them.

But you don't necessarily have to do that.

And then you're going to put a folded up paper clip.

I usually bend the paperclip in half.

It's just a standard metal paperclip.

And I would kind of bend it and squeeze it in half, just so you have a little

more surface area that can touch the top.

Um, and it makes it a little bit shorter, so you don't have so much paperclip.

hanging down before you get to the butterflies.

So you'll have this string and then you're going to create a bridge.

So for us, we just got two gallon size containers of water.

You could use milk jugs or cereal boxes, even stacks of handbooks would work.

And you're going to create a bridge with a ruler.

So just something stiff, like a ruler.

Ours was metal, so it was a little easier, but you could use a thin

wood one or plastic one as well.

And that's going to create the bridge across those two.

containers, then you set a magnet on the very top of that

bridge right in the middle.

And when you do that, it creates this field.

So, what I would do if I was setting this up is I would take my paper

clip with my butterflies dangling below, and I would actually attach

it magnetically to that magnet.

So if you have a ruler between, you're going to have a magnet on top, ruler,

and then you're going to have this chain of butterflies dangling down.

Then you want to create tension on it so that that paperclip

stays aloft, but actually isn't connected to the ruler anymore.

There's so much magnetic attraction between that magnet on the top of

the ruler and this paperclip that even when there's a little bit of

separation, It still stays aloft.

It's the coolest thing, you guys.

So you're going to tape your string down to your table or your counter at that

height so that your kids can actually like pass a piece of paper through the

gap between the top of the paper clip and the bottom of that magnetic field.

And you'll show how those butterflies can fly.

You can move that magnet around and watch the butterflies kind of wiggle.

But as soon as you take that magnet away, That entire chain

of butterflies falls down.

It's the same principle we were trying to teach with the little garden cup.

You want your kids to understand what the Atonement really offers.

That without it, inevitably, we all fall.

We have to because we, because of the fall of Adam and Eve, this is a fallen

world where we make mistakes and we can't, you know, resurrect ourselves.

We can't save ourselves.

We need the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

We need his grace.

No matter how well you live this life and how many great choices you

make, you cannot save yourselves.

We need the grace of Christ.

And that's when you, you know, reattach.

Show your kids that butterfly chain and show them what they can do

with the power that Christ offers.

When that's intact, you can float, and you can dance, and you can see beauty.

But without it, we are lost a little bit.

And that's what Jacob was trying to help us understand.

Thanks for being here, you guys.

That's it for week eight.

Okay, I hope you enjoyed this deep dive of the atonement of Jesus Christ.

Jacob's writings are beautiful.

Even Isaiah's, I think, are phenomenal.

It's just a really rich week of study.

If you need extra help, or you just want to come and chat with a gathering

of people who are trying to study these verses, come find me on the live.

So at gather.

mechmom.

com, that's where you can find the full course.

If you're interested, if you want to have access to the notes and the

printables, you can find that there.

But even as a free member, you're welcome to come and join us on the live.

And that's where it's a bit like a zoom call.

I've capped it.

So there's only 30 people that can come for each one.

So if you're one of the first 30 that pop on, you can join us.

And then chit chat about these versus give you some ideas about things.

I didn't have time to fit into these videos and also walk you through some

of the object lessons so that you know, what's coming for this week

and you know, stuff you need to buy.

Otherwise, I think you'll, you'll be fine either way.

I just did want to say thank you to those of you who've left reviews on the

podcast, even reviews on the Etsy shop.

If you, as you've tried out some of the printables and those of you who have

commented on the course on the YouTube videos, um, it really does help a lot.

It's, it offers some really needed lift some days.

So thank you for all you do to kind of boy us up in our little family's efforts to.

Pull this off every week.

So thank you for engaging with us and we're looking forward to lots, lots more.

So come on back next week as we head into week nine.