This family home evening lesson is based on Elder David A Bednar’s talk “Ye Must Be Born Again.” You may want to read it. If you have teenagers in your family, you may want to ask them to read it before you teach the lesson. This talk contains important concepts to teach your children.
You can open the lesson by reading Mosiah 27:25-26. You may want to begin with an object lesson. You can pass out pieces of a cucumber and a pickle for your children to look at. You should point out that the pickle started out as a cucumber, but was changed through the pickling process. Then go on to explain that Elder Bednar compared this process to our personal conversion process.
You can then take your children through each of the steps that involve changing the cucumber to a pickle and compare it to personal conversion. The first step is the cleansing process. When you talk about this you should discuss how we become clean through baptism and repentance. You may want to review the repentance process with your children.
The next step is to put the pickles in the brine. Elder Bednar refers to this as immersion and saturation. These words are especially important. Immersion means to cover completely. While saturation means to soak up completely to the point that it changes the composition of the object. You need to immerse yourself, so that you can allow the saturation process to happen. Just as the brine changes the pickle, the gospel can change our lives. You may want to talk about how you can immerse yourself in the gospel (going to church, and reading the scriptures). You can also talk about how to saturate yourself with the gospel (through personal prayer, and keeping the commandments). You may want to stress that it is important to do these things every day, so that you can benefit from immersing yourself in the gospel.
The final process in changing is the purifying and sealing. You can point out that as you advance in the gospel and attend the temple that the covenants you make help to fulfill this promise. It is important that you continue to live righteously however. You can close the lesson by reading Alma 5:49.
You can choose your favorite hymns to accompany this lesson. If you need additional resources, you may want to read and use Alma 5. In addition you may consider making pickles as part of the activity. You can make refrigerator pickles that do not take as long to change. This may help the younger children grasp the parable better. In fact you may want to make the pickles and then do the lesson, asking your children to recall the steps that they took.
Related Articles:
General Conference: “Ye Must Be Born Again”
Family Home Evening: Repentance