Questions and Discussion Ideas for "Standing by Our Promises and Covenants" by Elder Ronald A. Rasband
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"Standing by Our Promises and Covenants" by Elder Ronald A. Rasband is another talk from October 2019 General Conference that discusses our commitment to our covenants and promises. It’s interesting that so many of the talks referred to being committed. How we can strengthen our resolve?
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Questions to Ponder
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Why is it difficult to keep our word? Why, in today's world, do we struggle to do what we say we will do? How can you improve that for you?
What does it mean to strive to keep your covenants? How do you do it?
Elder Rasband says keeping promises is a characteristic of a disciple of Christ. What are some of the other characteristics of a disciple of Christ?
How does viewing yourself as a disciple of Christ influence your decisions?
What are some of the Lord's promises mentioned in this talk? What are some other of the Lord's promises you have read in the scriptures? How do you rely on the Lord's promises to you? How would you feel if you couldn’t rely on the Lord’s promises?
What promises did you make at baptism? How do those promises affect your commitment to your calling? your other covenants? to the Lord?
Elder Rasband shared an experience where his mom asked him to promise to keep the Word of Wisdom when he was young. How can we have a similar experience with our children? What promises could you encourage your children to make that would benefit them the rest of their lives? Where are your children struggling and how could making a promise bless them?
How committed is your family to your Come, Follow Me study? How could you use promises to improve your success? How can commitments improve your family?
How has making decisions in advance blessed your own life? How have promises you made as a youth, blessed you as an adult? How can you teach this principle to your children, grandchildren, primary class, Young Women, Young Men, etc?
How do your covenants protect you and remind you of what is really important?
Why do we forget the importance and promises of our covenants? What can we do to recommit ourselves daily to our covenants? How will this stronger commitment bless our lives?
Elder Rasband shared some great examples from the scriptures of people who kept their word to others. Can you think of any other examples from the scriptures where someone kept their promise? Do you have any experiences from your own life where keeping a promise has blessed you? Have you seen someone around you keep their promises?
By coming to earth, we promised to help gather Israel. How are you doing in your commitment to gather Israel? How can we improve our efforts to gather Israel? How does strengthening your family influence the strength of Israel?
When we have integrity, we will be blessed. Do those blessings mean things will go our way? If we are honest, does everything work out? Do you have an experience where honesty did not fix the situation? How can we take strength in integrity even when things do not work out well?
What promises have you made with the Lord? your family? your ward? your spouse? your work? How can you consider those with integrity?
What does 1 Nephi 3:7 have to do with standing by our promises? Great question to ask your class! Get this Go and Do coloring page now.
Discussion Ideas
Bring a hard boiled egg to class but pretend it’s a raw egg. Ask for a volunteer to come to front. Give them the egg to hold on to then make them do a bunch of crazy activities while holding the egg like jumping over something, crawling under the table, throwing the egg to a friend, etc. If it starts to crack, all the better. How did they treat the egg because they thought it was raw? How should we treat our covenants? Then jump into Elder Rasband’s talk.
Make a quick survey style of handout with a scale of 1 to 10 for each question that Elder Rasband asks in the beginning of his talk, “How important is it to you to keep your word? to be trusted? to do what you say you will do? to strive to honor your sacred covenants? to have integrity?” (There are some more questions further in his talk you could include as well) Invite everyone to take a minute to fill it out. They can hide their answers, we won’t be sharing. Then ask the questions he said in paragraph 4 and jump into your discussion.
Put a picture of Jesus Christ on the board. Then ask how Jesus Christ kept his promises and covenants- write those on the board. Then discuss what we can learn from Christ’s example of covenant keeping. You might want to cite a few specific scriptural examples. For instance, when Satan tempted Christ after He fasted for 40 days. I’m sure that was all kinds of hard. How does being committed to our covenants help give us the strength to resist temptation to break them?
What are some commitments we might make in and out of the Church? Have everyone come and write an example on the board or write them quickly yourself (don’t worry about your spelling or handwriting, just get them up there). Which commitments are easy for us to break? Why? Which ones do we think we will never break? Why? How can we fix this? What do we do when we fully intended to keep a commitment? What are some commitments we need to be better at?
The story of Nephi and Zoram is such a great example of what commitment can really mean. As soon as Zoram made the oath to Nephi, Nephi didn’t worry anymore (see 1 Nephi 4:37). What are the chances of that happening today? Tell the story of Nephi and Zoram in modern terms. When you get to the part where Zoram makes an oath with Nephi (use different names), ask people if they would trust Zoram. Then show how it’s really Nephi and Zoram’s story. How was Zoram blessed because of his oath to Nephi?
Have you ever thrown a party? You ask for RSVP, lots of people say they will come so you buy all the supplies, decorate, make all the food, plan all the activities, etc. Then the day of the event comes and apologies of cancellations start to trickle in. When it’s finally time for the party, no one shows up. How can you compare this to our making covenants to God?
