Testimony and Jelly Beans
by Kelie Morgan / ga08022007


 

I'm going to buy a bunch of red jelly bellies in all different flavors: cherry, cinnamon, fruit punch, strawberry, etc.

Hand out the Jelly Bellies but don't eat them yet.

• Can you tell just with your eyes what flavor this candy is?

• You can guess, but do you really know? Sometimes we have to experience things…or feel things, to know for ourselves.

Okay, you can taste the Jelly Beans, What flavors did everyone get?

• Can you bear testimony of that flavor?

• Bearing your testimony is simply telling something you know to be true…you know that your jelly bean was cherry, so you can bear testimony of it.

What about with the gospel, how do we come to KNOW, so we can bear testimony?

• Just like with the Jelly beans you had to experience something, you had to taste it, with the gospel we have a special sense, not taste or sight or hearing, but it's feeling the spirit of
the Holy Ghost. Read Moroni 10: 4-5.

Tell about time when you felt the spirit bear testimony.
 
• Has anyone ever had an experience they'd like to share when they felt the Holy Ghost and it strengthened their testimony?

Share the 5 basic things that form the foundation of our testimony. Create poster board and have building blocks with these topics on them for the children to come up and put on the poster:

• God is our Father in Heaven
• Jesus Christ is His son and our Savior
• Joseph Smith was a prophet and the Book of Mormon was translated by the power of God
• The Church is the Lord's Church
• Living Prophet
 

Kelie also gives another alternative to Jelly Beans:

Have 4 or 5 Ziploc baggies filled with different things.  Ask the children if they can tell you what the thing inside the bag smells like. The things in the bag can going to be things like crushed up Oreos (so it looks like dirt but isn't), a tree shaped air freshener that really smells like vanilla, some vinegar that looks like water but isn't etc). The idea is that the children wont know just from looking what these items smell like, they'll have to use their sense of smell to be sure.