From Tonya Avery:
Junior Primary
Ask the children to share things they like to talk about with their parents. How does it make you feel when you know your parents are listening? Explain that praying to Heavenly Father is how they can talk to Him and He will hear them.
Read Enos 1:1–4 to the children. You can invite them to pretend to be Enos by acting out hunting, kneeling to pray, and so on. Explain that Heavenly Father heard Enos’s prayer and forgave his sins.
Sing together a song about prayer, such as “A Child’s Prayer” (Children’s Songbook, 12–13). Invite the children to raise their hands every time they hear the word “prayer” or another repeated word.
Senior Primary
Invite the children to close their eyes and imagine they are talking to Heavenly Father face-to-face. What would they like to talk about with Him? Invite the children to think about talking face-to-face with Heavenly Father each time they pray.
I encourage our Primary children to pray about anything that might bring them worries. My children often say the same things in their prayers: “Please bless for us not to be scared or worried when we are trying to sleep or asleep.” Over the past couple weeks, they’ve added “or awake in the daytime.” To the end of this sentence in their prayers. We are going through a different time right now staying home and changing our daily routines with no school or visits from friends. We can always talk to our parents and our Heavenly Father and pray for peace and comfort.
Invite the children to work with a parent or sibling and read Enos 1:1–5. Ask them to search these verses for a word or phrase that describes Enos’s prayers and then share what they find with the group. What do these words suggest about Enos and his experience?
Invite one child to read Words of Mormon 1:7 and another child or parent to read Doctrine and Covenants 8:2–3. What do these verses teach about how the Holy Ghost speaks to us? Help the children identify times when they have felt promptings from the Holy Ghost. Use Moroni 7:12 to explain that if a thought is good and inspires us to do good things, it comes from Heavenly Father.
When we receive a prompting from the Holy Ghost, we should listen and not ignore it. We can often be the answer to a friend or family member’s prayer if we act on the promptings of the Spirit.
Riverdale 7th Ward 