Plain and Precious Truths

My Niece Maurine

Today I taught my first class as the Gospel Essentials teacher in my ward.  The class was on baptism, and we were blessed to have a range of long time members, brand new members, and one investigator in the room.  The class seemed to go really well, but I am realizing that this class presents a whole new challenge for me as a teacher:  Plainness and Simplicity.  I try to be plain and simple whenever I teach, but admittedly I am rarely successful at that task.  I'm not very good at following manuals and it has been several years since I have really had to boil the principles of the gospel down to the plain and simple truths that children, new members, and investigators need in order to grasp the gospel.

More and more, I am learning that I should take my cues from my three-(soon to be four)-year-old niece Maurine (Mauri for short).  While I was talking to my sister Stephanie the other day, she told me that Mauri had gotten on the phone just long enough to say hello and to say that she (Mauri) was a child of God.  While Mauri may not understand everything she needs to know yet, she has grasped one of the most basic and fundamental truths of eternity: that she is a daughter of a Heavenly Father who loves her and she loves Him.  And that truth defines her.

The gospel certainly goes deeper than the so-called Sunday School answers.  And sometimes we throw those answers out too flippantly and with too little consideration and pondering.  But there is great value in remembering "the most plain and precious parts of the gospel of the Lamb" (1 Nephi 13:34).  In a world that tries to complicate everything and that encourages us to be impressed with our own intelligence and wit, there is value in remembering that the gospel of Jesus Christ is most powerful when it is taught in purity, simplicity, and plainness.  At some point I expect to learn that at the age of three Mauri actually understood the gospel far more deeply than did I, and the simplicity with which she taught it was the way it is actually the way it is supposed to be taught.

Brett