A Puzzling Family Night Lesson

The other day I was listening to conference talks in the car.  As I was listening to the first part of President Uchtdorf’s talk from Sunday morning (which really will go down as one of my favorite conference sessions of all time, capped off by an amazing rendition of “The Spirit of God”!) an idea for a family night lesson sprang into my mind. 

President Uchtdorf talks about people who are unable to really believe in the Savior because they are waiting for a big experience that will confirm everything for them.  He uses the analogy of a puzzle to demonstrate how we are more likely to gain a testimony of the Savior.

We started our family night with a 100 piece jigsaw puzzle.  I had taken it out of it’s identifying box and poured the pieces out on the table.  We started trying to figure out how to put it together, which was harder without a picture to look at.  Pretty quickly they figured out it was a picture of a temple, but it still took some time to figure out which pieces went on the sides, on the top, etc. 

After we had the puzzle all put together I told them that President Uchdorf had talked about how we gain a testimony of Jesus.  I read this quote (which I typed from the audio, so it might not be word for word perfect):

The truth is those who diligently  seek Christ will eventually come to know him.  They will personally receive a divine portrait of the master.  Although it most often comes in the form of a puzzle.  One piece at a time.  Each individual piece may not be easily recognizable by itself; it may not be clear how it relates to the whole.  Each piece helps us to see the big picture a little more clearly.  Eventually after enough pieces have been put together we recognize the grand beauty of it all.  Then looking back on our experience we see that the Savior had indeed come to be with us, not all at once, but quietly, gently, almost unnoticed. 

I brought out a large picture of Jesus and explained that President Uchtdorf was saying that some people want to get a testimony that is a whole big perfect picture of the Savior.  But that it’s more likely like our puzzle, and that sometimes it takes a while to understand what the pieces mean or how they fit together, but if we are patient and trust Heavenly Father while we wait to understand more.  We talked about how we had had to be patient as we put our puzzle together so that we could figure out what it was and where everything went. I explained that this was exactly what President Uchtdorf was talking about, except that instead of real puzzle pieces he was talking about pieces of our testimonies.

I had printed out puzzle pages and I handed everyone one.

 

I explained that we all have lots and lots of tiny pieces that make up our testimonies.  I told them that one small piece of my testimony comes from the ocean; that when I see how beautiful it is, I know that Jesus must truly love us to have created it for us.  Then I asked everyone to think of some of the pieces of their testimonies and write them down on the puzzle pieces on the picture.  It was a little abstract for the little kids, but I was really amazed (and touched!) to see what Josh had written.

Then we ate treats (and the kids wished I had made plain chocolate chip cookies instead) and sent everyone to bed.  It was a good family night!