Shownotes
Book of Mormon [2 NEPHI 20-25] Creative
“His Name Shall Be Called … The Prince of Peace”
March 4 – March 10, 2024
WEEK 10: SUMMARY
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Lesson Summary:
On the creative side we’ll explore the history and kingdoms of Isaiah’s prophecies with an interactive dinosaur map. Next we’ll create a giant tree from a small rod and talk about the stem of Jesse. Finally, we’ll understand how to see the adversary clearly by igniting ping pong balls and crumbling the remains.
- “The Haughty Shall Be Humbled”: Kingdoms of Isaiah Dinosaur Map
- “A Rod Out of the Stem of Jesse”: Expanding Tree
- “Shall Narrowly Look Upon Thee”: Disintegrating Ping Pong Fire
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Transcripts
Welcome back you guys, it's time for the creative side of week 10.
Speaker:So like I said last week, I think anytime you're teaching Isaiah, you need visuals.
Speaker:It's just hard for.
Speaker:This language to cross those barriers.
Speaker:So I feel like anything we can do to help our kids be excited by the
Speaker:words of Isaiah will give them a gateway to get more out of them.
Speaker:So I've got three really good options for you to work with this week.
Speaker:I am, I'm excited to get into the creative.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I'm going to walk you through the supplies list first and show you a
Speaker:quick preview of what we have in store.
Speaker:And then I'll take you through each one individually so that you'll know.
Speaker:how to pull them off or how to adapt them to your own kids and classes.
Speaker:Okay, the first one.
Speaker:I think it's really hard, especially this week, to understand what Isaiah is talking
Speaker:about because he uses so many allusions.
Speaker:You know, he talks about Babylon or Assyria and he uses their historical
Speaker:experiences to be a type for What will happen at the end of time?
Speaker:What's hard is if you don't know the history, then all those
Speaker:shadows and types are lost on you.
Speaker:So I wanted to give you some way that you could help your kids get it.
Speaker:And I've created a printable to do just that.
Speaker:And it involves dinosaurs.
Speaker:You just roll with me.
Speaker:There's a really good reason for it.
Speaker:The visual that kept coming to mind this week for me when I heard about one
Speaker:kingdom conquering another and then a bigger kingdom coming and conquering
Speaker:them, I kept thinking of the dinosaur kingdom and that this basically happens.
Speaker:And so I wanted to create.
Speaker:A printable based around that.
Speaker:So I'm giving you a map of the areas that, that Isaiah speaks about so that
Speaker:you can kind of get yourselves oriented.
Speaker:And then there's an interactive component to the map when you.
Speaker:I'll walk you through it in just a second.
Speaker:Basically for this one you only need the printable and, I mean, cardstock
Speaker:to print it on and then just a little bit of glue to hold the dinosaurs
Speaker:together, but that's all you're going to need for the first one.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Second one.
Speaker:This one is all about that beautiful prophecy about the stem of Jesse.
Speaker:Isaiah teaches this so clearly.
Speaker:He talks about the Savior, uh, Jesus Christ being this stem, and then
Speaker:he talks about roots and branches and how you will see something
Speaker:new growing out of this stem.
Speaker:And I wanted some cool visual for that, so I created a printable that
Speaker:I'm calling an expanding tree, because this one's been used a few times,
Speaker:so it's puffing out at the top.
Speaker:Basically, you're going to make a rod, which will be kind of a straight stick,
Speaker:and then you're going to pull it, and it will create a giant, like, Five foot
Speaker:tree that your kids can play with you.
Speaker:You just wait.
Speaker:It's it's gonna be worth it.
Speaker:Okay third one This is the most adventurous of all three.
Speaker:I had to bring this one back This is from our Old Testament course when
Speaker:we said these same words of Isaiah talking about how When people see the
Speaker:adversary for who he really is, they will look on him narrowly, and they
Speaker:will say, Is this the man that, you know, caused the kingdoms to shake?
Speaker:It's that beautiful message that you find from Isaiah.
Speaker:The way we taught it in the Old Testament is with a ping pong ball and a lighter.
Speaker:So if you weren't with us in the Old Testament, or maybe you just didn't
Speaker:try this object lesson, then this is one your kids will never forget.
Speaker:As soon as I brought it up, my kids were like, oh, yeah, we're doing that one.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:This one, you just need a ping pong ball.
Speaker:We did find that the best ping pong balls are the cheaper ones.
Speaker:So don't go get your fancy ping pong balls, get two stars or
Speaker:lower and then a lighter and then something to contain it in.
Speaker:It will make a very big flame.
Speaker:So you need something kind of big, like a glass bowl, something heat proof that
Speaker:has some high walls to contain the flames.
Speaker:And I'll tell you why in just a second.
Speaker:In chapter 25, Nephi gives us some tips on how to understand the words of Isaiah.
Speaker:And one of my favorites is that you have to know the region's roundabout.
Speaker:Remember, Nephi grew up in Jerusalem.
Speaker:He would have known all these areas that Isaiah is speaking about.
Speaker:But his younger siblings and their kids, their kids kids wouldn't.
Speaker:And so he's trying to help them get a mental picture of what
Speaker:these promises are all about.
Speaker:I have to tell you, like one of the richest things I found this week was found
Speaker:through the geography and the history.
Speaker:Because I studied the Old Testament with you guys in so much depth,
Speaker:going back into my notes and pulling out old things I had studied.
Speaker:really helped me see things that I had never seen before.
Speaker:And I really want my kids to have that same experience.
Speaker:But I don't think they're gonna give it the time that I gave it
Speaker:to study the geography of Isaiah.
Speaker:So I thought I needed some cool fun way for them to make it memorable.
Speaker:So I've created basically more of a teaching tool.
Speaker:It's not so much an object lesson as it is a way for you to teach the
Speaker:geography of Isaiah's prophecies in a really memorable way.
Speaker:So like I showed you, first you're going to create this map, just a simple
Speaker:one page printable of the areas that are mentioned in this week's study.
Speaker:Then you're going to create dinosaurs.
Speaker:So in the printable, you're going to find these little like nesting doll type.
Speaker:dinosaurs.
Speaker:So the biggest one is Persia because they eventually conquer everything.
Speaker:If you look, the next one in is Babylon.
Speaker:Babylon gets conquered by Persia.
Speaker:So you're going to like show your kids this process.
Speaker:The way I would set this up is if you look on the printable, I also give you this.
Speaker:essentially kind of a lesson plan.
Speaker:It's a script that your kids could walk through to see the history of the
Speaker:children of Israel in these prophecies.
Speaker:So on the printable you'll hear, you'll, you'll read a little
Speaker:paragraph about the history and then it will tell you in colored.
Speaker:writing what to do, which dinosaur to move on top of the other one.
Speaker:So for example, when at the beginning of the prophecies, Israel and Syria
Speaker:make an alliance, and then they try to get King Ahab of Judah to join
Speaker:them, and he doesn't, you're going to combine Israel and Syria into one.
Speaker:They're going to try and battle Assyria.
Speaker:But because Assyria is bigger, Assyria conquers them, and he swallows them up.
Speaker:So the idea is that these bigger printable dinosaurs will
Speaker:swallow up the smaller ones.
Speaker:And then as you go through that lesson, you see that whole thing play out.
Speaker:You see that over the course of time, Assyria tries to get
Speaker:Judah, but doesn't quite get it.
Speaker:So the instructions will tell you how to like almost conquer Judah,
Speaker:but then pull off again, just like what happens with Assyria.
Speaker:Then you'll see that big triceratops of Babylon come
Speaker:and eventually conquer Assyria.
Speaker:And then ultimately, after they've taken all the Jews back to Babylon,
Speaker:Babylon itself gets conquered by the big, the big T Rex of Persia.
Speaker:And you can kind of watch your kids.
Speaker:through the story.
Speaker:What I found is by making my kids teach this lesson, so I kind of demonstrated
Speaker:it for them really briefly first and then I just had them teach each other.
Speaker:I had Sam try to teach Will and he just followed the script and
Speaker:then demonstrated it with moving the little dinosaurs around.
Speaker:What was powerful is within one or two times of teaching it to each
Speaker:other and then me quizzing them on what they learned, they could tell me
Speaker:the story of the children of Israel.
Speaker:But that's a remarkable thing, you guys.
Speaker:It's something that took me years to figure it all out,
Speaker:but they were able to catch it.
Speaker:They understood the idea of one nation conquering another.
Speaker:In fact, to me, one of the most powerful parts of this experience is at the end of
Speaker:that script, it talks about how every one of those nations gets conquered in time.
Speaker:So all those dinosaurs tip over, except for those who are gathered back in.
Speaker:So this is when you put Judah and Israel back together in one kingdom and you
Speaker:talk about the gathering of Israel.
Speaker:Why it happens, where it happens, and who is leading that charge.
Speaker:And it's just this sweet and simple way to teach your kids how to understand
Speaker:Isaiah and the importance of their work of gathering Israel at the same time.
Speaker:I think you're going to love it.
Speaker:All of your kids have seen branches growing out of tree
Speaker:trunks and stumps before.
Speaker:That's not new.
Speaker:The problem is it happens so slowly, you know, over the course of years that
Speaker:none of us really notice it happening.
Speaker:So when Isaiah uses that as a prophecy and a visual, sometimes it's hard to
Speaker:grasp how miraculous it really is.
Speaker:He's talking about the stem of Jesse, that the Savior himself, there will be these
Speaker:roots and branches that grow up out of it.
Speaker:He calls it a rod.
Speaker:And then you can go in the notes and learn from the Doctrine and Covenants and from
Speaker:modern prophets that this is a reference to Joseph Smith and the restoration of
Speaker:the priesthood keys that allow these.
Speaker:Covenant connections to be made again.
Speaker:So you can go into the notes and learn a lot more, but I wanted some
Speaker:way to show my kids how miraculous it really is that something that appears
Speaker:to be stagnant, especially during the time of the apostasy, that it
Speaker:appears to be cut off, grows again.
Speaker:And there's just no better way to do it than creating an expanding tree.
Speaker:So to create this rod, you're basically going to lay out eight pieces of paper.
Speaker:So on the printable, you'll have seven that have this kind
Speaker:of leafy pattern on the top.
Speaker:I made it pretty light so you wouldn't have to use a ton of ink.
Speaker:There's a black and white version and a color version, but you're going to lay
Speaker:out seven pieces of this leafy paper.
Speaker:And then at the very end, you're going to create this wrap of bark around it.
Speaker:So that when you roll that paper up on itself, you'll tape all those
Speaker:pieces together and you'll roll it up.
Speaker:On itself and then you'll.
Speaker:We just put like a little rubber band around it to kind of hold it in place.
Speaker:It will just look like a stick.
Speaker:In fact, it'll just look like a tube, you know, she looked like a stick with
Speaker:bark on the outside and there's nothing particularly remarkable about it.
Speaker:So this is when you talk to your kids about That stem of Jesse
Speaker:and what it represents, that it represents the savior himself.
Speaker:And then you talk about the miracle of the restoration when
Speaker:something grows from it, and that's where you grabbed your scissors.
Speaker:So this is when you make four cuts.
Speaker:So on the printable, I've created a line.
Speaker:There's a little dotted line.
Speaker:You're just going to cut four slits kind of at each of the
Speaker:four corners of your circle, you know, like opposite each other.
Speaker:And you cut all the way down to that dotted line.
Speaker:Then you'll gently sort of fold those.
Speaker:Paper is back a little bit and this is where the magic happens.
Speaker:This is when you talk about what grows out of that stem of Jesse.
Speaker:So you'll pull from the very center of your rod, and you'll gently tug up.
Speaker:And what's so cool, you guys, is that as you gently tug up, it expands.
Speaker:And not just a foot, not just two feet, like four feet tall, five feet tall,
Speaker:depending on how much you can stretch it.
Speaker:Your kids will be holding a tree that used to be, you know, 10 inches, and now
Speaker:it's turned into something four feet.
Speaker:And that's when you testify about the marvelous work and wonder that
Speaker:is the restoration of Jesus Christ.
Speaker:His gospel is here.
Speaker:The Book of Mormon offers us that opportunity to see a marvelous work
Speaker:carried out in front of us, and it will have Huge ramifications.
Speaker:My hope is that your kids will see that process and get an increased
Speaker:appreciation for the day they live in.
Speaker:This is a day of miracles.
Speaker:It is a day where unexpected things are happening in order to bring God's children
Speaker:home and our kids get to be a part of it.
Speaker:I just think it's exciting.
Speaker:In fact, this is an object lesson that you can do over and over again.
Speaker:That's why this Mine looks so fluffy on the top because
Speaker:we've done this back and forth.
Speaker:So if you want to shrink it back down, so maybe if you were making this in a
Speaker:primary class or seminary class and you wanted your kids to not carry around
Speaker:a four foot tree, you can actually condense it all back down again.
Speaker:That's why I do a rubber band on mine instead of taping everything in place
Speaker:because that allows you to kind of take off the rubber band and sort of tap it and
Speaker:get it to all compress back down again.
Speaker:If your kids struggle to get it to tap into place, you can also unroll
Speaker:it and just re roll it back up again, and then Pull it back out.
Speaker:But every time, every time they pull it up and every time they
Speaker:show the transformation from a rod to a tree, their testimony of
Speaker:what that represents can deepen.
Speaker:Now that's my hope with this object lesson.
Speaker:This third object lesson I call the disintegrating ping pong ball fight
Speaker:because it's sort of like the stem of Jesse object lesson in reverse,
Speaker:where the stem of Jesse is something small that turns into something big.
Speaker:This object lesson teaches us about the adversary.
Speaker:So it is something that looks big that actually turns into
Speaker:something very, very small.
Speaker:And it's inspired by those verses in Isaiah's writings about the king
Speaker:of Babylon, when it says, he goes to hell and the other kings who used
Speaker:to be so intimidated by him, see him and they look on him narrowly.
Speaker:And they say, is this the king that caused everybody to.
Speaker:You know, what was all the fuss about?
Speaker:He's nothing.
Speaker:And I feel like that's our experience with the adversary.
Speaker:The only reason I would think that is because of what we
Speaker:read from Moses's story.
Speaker:Remember in the Pearl of Great Price when we studied this and he
Speaker:encounters the Lord and his glory and his goodness and he feels connection.
Speaker:And then he experiences the adversary and he basically says, Who are
Speaker:you that I should worship you?
Speaker:I don't think it's that the adversary all of a sudden looks smaller.
Speaker:I think the reason Moses can look on him narrowly is because,
Speaker:in comparison, He has no glory.
Speaker:There is no light about him.
Speaker:There is no brightness to him.
Speaker:There is nothing worthy of worship.
Speaker:And that's what I think we want our kids to understand.
Speaker:We want to help them see that, yes, Satan puts on a big show, but it cannot last.
Speaker:Isaiah's writings teach us that over and over and over again.
Speaker:Everything that is not of the Savior will eventually topple.
Speaker:And the way you show that is with a little bit of fire and a ping pong ball.
Speaker:So if you don't know this about ping pong balls, they are pretty
Speaker:flammable, especially the cheaper ones.
Speaker:So you want to be kind of careful with this object.
Speaker:Listen, obviously, if this is too dangerous for your kids, or
Speaker:if you're in a church situation where you can't, I give you some
Speaker:links in the notes to some videos.
Speaker:You could watch up many, many ping pong balls starting on fire.
Speaker:But if you have a chance to demonstrate it.
Speaker:I promise it's so much more memorable.
Speaker:This is one I would recommend you go outside because burning plastic just
Speaker:kind of has a gross smell and because it can create a little bit of smoke.
Speaker:So we did it inside first with three ping pong balls, but we use the fancier ones
Speaker:and they did not burn nearly as well.
Speaker:So my recommendation is look for the cheaper ones.
Speaker:The ones we used were two star and they worked great and
Speaker:you want to put them outside.
Speaker:So go outside.
Speaker:Our deck was covered with snow, so it was easy.
Speaker:keep things safe.
Speaker:But if you don't have that option, make sure you have some water
Speaker:or a fire extinguisher nearby.
Speaker:And then obviously I would recommend that an adult to do this experiment.
Speaker:Since I was recording, Will did this one, but have someone old and responsible
Speaker:manage the ping pong ball burning.
Speaker:To set it on fire, it's really easy.
Speaker:You're just going to set it inside a heat proof container of some kind.
Speaker:We liked using one that was clear, just because then you could see the full
Speaker:effect of the flame and you want to touch it with a long neck lighter, a short
Speaker:lighter will be hard and kind of risky for your hand to be close to the flame.
Speaker:So you really want something that has a longer neck and you're going to let that
Speaker:flame touch the ball for a few seconds.
Speaker:I think it was like four or five seconds and then it will ignite.
Speaker:It's not that there's a fancy gas inside this ping pong ball.
Speaker:It's just the kind of.
Speaker:material it's made of.
Speaker:This celluloid is very flammable, so it will make a big show.
Speaker:In fact, it is shocking how big of a flame you get from one ping pong ball.
Speaker:When Will did it, we put two in that vase and, I mean, you have
Speaker:a flame that's easily six, ten inches above the rim of that vase.
Speaker:It is a big fire for such a small thing.
Speaker:What's powerful is what happens next.
Speaker:So after that fire burns out, which is pretty fast, like within
Speaker:a minute, it burns out, what's left behind is this fine black mesh.
Speaker:It's there's almost nothing to it.
Speaker:You can barely pick it up.
Speaker:So after the container cools off, then you want to pick up that
Speaker:black mesh that's left over and let your kids hold it in their hands.
Speaker:And talk about the difference.
Speaker:What this ball looked like when it was on fire was big and blustery and hot.
Speaker:And what it looks like after it's done is this disintegrating mesh.
Speaker:In fact, if you rub it in your hands, it will literally just crumble
Speaker:to ash and blow off your hand.
Speaker:That's the power of the adversary.
Speaker:That's why we will look on Him narrowly, not because He changes, but
Speaker:because the closer we come to God in this life and in the next one, the
Speaker:more we will see Him for who He is.
Speaker:That all that bluster and all that show was just that.
Speaker:It was a show and there's not much, there won't be anything to
Speaker:worship or anything to follow.
Speaker:We will look on Him narrowly.
Speaker:See, I told you it was going to be a good week.
Speaker:Okay, I hope you enjoyed these tools.
Speaker:Remember, you can access the printables on the course over at gather.
Speaker:macmom.
Speaker:com or if you're not interested in the subscription, you can usually
Speaker:find them on my Etsy site as well.
Speaker:Just go search MacMom on Etsy and you'll find it.
Speaker:Or I think we've got a link in the description.
Speaker:The other thing I would tell you is if you want extra help, you're welcome to
Speaker:come join me on the live, whether you're a subscriber of the course or not.
Speaker:Just come to gather.
Speaker:mecmom.
Speaker:com sign up for a free account and you can join us on the live where
Speaker:we have kind of an interactive study Monday morning at 10 a.
Speaker:m.
Speaker:Mountain Time.
Speaker:We will talk through these chapters.
Speaker:I'll add some insights and ideas that I couldn't quite fit into the
Speaker:videos and also just field questions.
Speaker:If you have questions about Isaiah's writings, if you have Questions about
Speaker:how to pull off the object lessons.
Speaker:Come join me for the live and I will try to answer those.
Speaker:If you can't catch it live, you are more than welcome to watch it afterwards.
Speaker:It's always available on the site.
Speaker:In fact, you can see every week previous if you want to, if you
Speaker:want to seek it over on gather.
Speaker:macmom.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:Otherwise, I hope you enjoy this week of study.
Speaker:I know Isaiah is intense and it's a lot, but I actually
Speaker:think it's so doable this week.
Speaker:And there's so much modern day application to what Isaiah was trying to teach us.
Speaker:I really do think you're going to enjoy it.
Speaker:You just have to give yourself enough time to.
Speaker:Dig in.
Speaker:So, open up the notes, grab those scriptures, and I promise you'll
Speaker:find goodness in the pages.
Speaker:Alright you guys, enjoy your week, and I'll see you on Monday.
