I was paying attention… then I zoned out. ⁣

And then he finished the training. ⁣

“Any questions?” ⁣

Purely to protect my pride, I said “Nope, that all sounds great!”⁣

But I had no clue what to do for most of the tasks. ⁣

I’ve found this dichotomy interesting to reflect on:⁣

My supervisor did exactly what he was supposed to do. ⁣

He taught me everything. He was very kind. ⁣

But I had completely disengaged as a learner, and it was reflected in how much help I needed the first few days of the job. ⁣

Had he failed his training because I struggled? ⁣

I don’t think so. ⁣

A lot of emotions run through my mind when I read this statement in the Family: A Proclamation to the World:⁣

“Husbands and wives—mothers and fathers—will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.”⁣

But one thing I’ve been focused on is: ⁣

The effectiveness of my teaching is not always reflected in how well the students learn. ⁣

Both the teacher and the learner need to be willing in order for true understanding to occur. ⁣

This doesn’t excuse poor or half-hearted teaching, but it takes away our complete dependence on results in order to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching. ⁣

We, as parents, are asked to teach our children how to love, to serve, to work hard, and to keep the commandments. ⁣

Not to make them be loving, service-filled, hard-working, commandment-keepers. ⁣

We have a solemn responsibility to teach as well as we possibly can, pleading with the Lord to know exactly what our children might need from us. ⁣

Nothing more and nothing less.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post My job training failure first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

Because when I first searched for “Come, Follow Me” resources in January of 2019…

I only found ways to teach your kids about the scriptures.

Basically, family scripture study support.

And I so selfishly thought (with a 1 year old who I wasn’t really concerned about teaching yet)…

What about me?!

Where is my help and support?!

(Which led to the prompting for me to start this account, but the full saga is a story for another day.)

I have gained SUCH a strong testimony that we have to learn for ourselves first. ⁣

We have to put the oxygen mask on ourselves first.

In fact, I think that’s the best way to teach our families!

Now that I have older kids where I DO want to teach the gospel more…

I find that most of my teaching comes from my heart.

It’s from my real life experiences.

From real struggles and testimonies and tests. ⁣

It’s from what I have already studied.

(This is not a knock at lesson-helps by the way – I actually have tried and currently use many that I love. I am so grateful for those who use their talents in that area.)

And now with my Youth Sunday School calling, I try to make my top priority each week studying the material on my own and learning what the Spirit needs to teach me.

Before it even crosses my mind what to teach, I fill my own mind with learning and inspiration for my own life.

Are we sometimes TOO concerned about how to teach a topic to our kids?

How to give a good talk?

How to keep our class engaged?⁣

Or is our focus on how WE can gain a better understanding of a concept?

“Seek not to declare my word, but first seek to obtain my word, and then shall your tongue be loosed; then, if you desire, you shall have my Spirit and my word, yea, the power of God unto the convincing of men.” (D&C 11:21)

“In order to successfully teach the gospel, you must have both the word and the power of the gospel in your life.” – David M. McConkie

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Why I started this account  first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

For some reason, we started talking about different callings in the church. ⁣

I felt like I should ask him what his favorite calling had ever been. ⁣

This is a man who had been a mission president in Romania, a branch president at the MTC, a bishop, and pretty much every other “prestigious” calling in the book. ⁣

He thought about my question for a while. ⁣

I was pretty sure he would say mission president.

But then he said his favorite calling was being a ward Sunday School teacher. ⁣

He said that he loved just discussing the gospel with other people. ⁣

That conversation has always stayed with me.

Because to me, he had served in so many “important callings”…

And yet the one that he picked seemed so mundane. ⁣

But my grandpa also really loved the gospel. ⁣

I think he understood that the “prestige” of his callings didn’t really matter.

They didn’t make him any better than anyone else. ⁣

At the end of the day, he loved teaching the gospel and listening to the gospel being taught. ⁣

I love the beautiful, cyclical nature of callings in the church. ⁣

We get taught lessons by new converts, by young moms, by former stake presidents…

And there’s always something to learn!⁣

I love this commentary from Alma chapter 1:

“And when the priests left their labor to impart the word of God unto the people, the people also left their labors to hear the word of God.

“And when the priest had imparted unto them the word of God they all returned again diligently unto their labors;

“and the priest, not esteeming himself above his hearers, for the preacher was no better than the hearer, neither was the teacher any better than the learner;

“and thus they were all equal, and they did all labor, every man according to his strength.” (Alma 1:26)

It’s a beautiful reminder that in this church, none of us is greater than the other. ⁣

Unlike other establishments where people seek power or high ranks or to “move up the ladder”, we get the cool opportunity to serve other people in different ways at different times. ⁣

And when pride or jealousy start to creep in, those are great reminders to keep in perspective. ⁣

Every “calling” in this church is temporary.

None of them dictate how much value we hold.

All of them give us opportunities to serve and become a little better.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post My grandpa’s favorite calling first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

As part of my planning, I was trying to find the best quotes, scripture stories, and examples.

So I really started to ponder:

How have I personally learned the importance of service?

Story after story popped into my mind of watching my parents, teachers, and leaders and observing how they helped others.

And even more stories popped into my mind of when others had served me in a moment of quiet need.

And then I laughed!

Here I was trying to teach a lesson about service in a classroom through quotes and presentation, when the best way to learn about it is actually by watching others serve.

“We not only teach with words; we teach also by who we are and how we live our lives.” —Thomas S. Monson

In Matthew 10:1, Christ calls all twelve of His disciples.

“And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.”

He gave them the priesthood power to serve and perform miracles!

But how did these disciples know how to use their priesthood power appropriately?!

They had just watched the Savior do all of these same things!

He lived it.

And then He invited them to do the same. ⁣

Are we asking people in our lives to be kind and patient but not giving them the kind and patient example to follow?

Are we asking people we love to study the scriptures without modeling what meaningful scripture study can look like? ⁣

Are we asking people to be more loving, without showing more love to them, too?

Jesus taught by using His words and then living a life that completely backed up and even elaborated on what He said.

Now, we aren’t going to be as perfect as the perfect example.

Have I raised my voice in frustration to yell, “Why can’t we all be calm and happy?!”

Yup.

But we’ve got the goal.

And we can realign and repent and try again over and over.

The best lesson we can ever teach is how we live our lives.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post How to teach about service first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

It’s actually super cute.

Anytime he sits down at the table, no matter what time of day it is or what he’s doing at the table, he insists that we all say a prayer.

Or if he catches me folding my arms in any casual situations, he insists that we stop and say a prayer.

Of course, I can’t say no to a prayer, so we are saying a lot of short and sweet prayers nowadays.

But my 4 year old is starting to get to the point where she doesn’t just do things because mom and dad tell her to.

She wants to know WHY we are doing them.

And so as we’ve worked to develop our family habits of praying and reading the scriptures together, I’ve started trying to be more conscious in how I talk about these habits.

Instead of: “It’s time to read and pray before we go to bed.”

I’ve been trying to do more of: “It’s time to read scriptures so that we can learn more about Jesus!”

I was actually pleasantly surprised to see how explicitly the Lord tries to teach this to the Israelites, too!

After He taught them about repeating the Passover ordinance each year, He says in Exodus 12:26-27:

“And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service? That ye shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s passover, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians, and delivered our houses.”

The Lord wanted the people to not just celebrate the Passover each year after this first initial miracle–

He wanted His people to teach their children WHY they were repeating this Passover ordinance and celebration.

It can be so easy to get caught up in just trying to get our kids to cooperate in saying prayers, in staying quiet at church, in paying tithing, in setting goals, in serving and showing kindness…

But the Lord wants us to also teach the WHY.

Why do YOU try to be reverent at church? Why do YOU say prayers, and pay tithing, and attend the temple?

When we can share our own testimonies and our own “why”s with our kids, we are sharing our hearts and truly teaching our values in authentic ways.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Teach the WHY first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

I was paying attention… then I zoned out.

And then he finished the training.

“Any questions?”

Purely to protect my pride, I said “Nope, that all sounds great!”

But I had no clue what to do for most of the tasks.

I’ve found this dichotomy interesting to reflect on:

My supervisor did exactly what he was supposed to do.

He taught me everything. He was very kind.

But I had completely disengaged as a learner, and it was reflected in how much help I needed the first few days of the job.

Had he failed his training because I struggled?

I don’t think so.

A lot of emotions run through my mind when I read this statement in the Family: A Proclamation to the World:

“Husbands and wives—mothers and fathers—will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.”

But one thing I’ve been focused on is:

The effectiveness of my teaching is not always reflected in how well the students learn.

Both the teacher and the learner need to be willing in order for true understanding to occur.

This doesn’t excuse poor or half-hearted teaching, but it takes our complete dependence on results in order to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching.

We, as parents, are asked to teach our children how to love, to serve, to work hard, and to keep the commandments.

Not to make them be loving, service-filled, hard-working, commandment-keepers.

We have a solemn responsibility to teach as well as we possibly can, pleading with the Lord to know exactly what our children might need from us.

Nothing more and nothing less.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post We can teach but not force learning first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

I usually kept things super high energy and busy on the first day, so that the kids didn’t have an option but to be engaged and get to know me.

And within just a few minutes, this particular student was already being defiant and apathetic.

So I made it a goal to say 5 positive, non-behavior-related comments to him each day.

I complimented his shoes. I asked him what they did in P.E. today. I asked him to help me hand out pencils. He wrote a sentence about a movie when I had asked for a paragraph, and I talked to him all about my favorite parts of the movie.

He seemed surprised at first.

But he started to warm up to me.

Then, I slowly introduced buddy-buddy conversations about his behavior.

“Hey, I get that you were trying to be funny when you made that comment earlier, but it really derailed the entire class for a while. Could you help me out and save those kinds of comments til after class or when we have some free time?”

And then, when he’d start to talk out in class again, I’d give him a little “knowing” look.

He caught on.

Honestly, he was a good kid. He really struggled academically, but the behavior issues subsided to the point that they weren’t so disruptive.

I made A WHOLE LOT of mistakes while teaching.

But I never let a child leave my classroom without knowing that they were seen as a real human being, and that they were loved.

I LITERALLY thought of this scripture often, and even taught a training to my co-workers using this “saying that I once heard”… 

“Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy;” D&C 121:43

I now use this in my parenting all the time. When the positive comments VASTLY outweigh the corrective or negative, no matter how many there are, there is a feeling of love and “I’m on your team”-ness.

God sees us as more than our mistakes, and I think He wants us to emulate that, too.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post More than our mistakes first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.

You can start with an anticipatory set to pique interest, you can read from a common piece of literature and analyze different components, or you could go inquiry-based.

And… I love them all!

To me, crafting a lesson plan is exactly that— a beautiful craft of mixing creativity and teaching concrete topics.

After my formal teaching training and degree, I finally had the first opportunity to teach a full lesson in church to a youth Sunday School class.

I jumped into “lesson planning” mode and crafted prompts and stories that were going to perfectly take these kids through the concept of “tender mercies”.

Sunday arrived, and I was so excited to teach the lesson.

I walked into the classroom, and within five minutes, I knew what I had prepared was not going to work.

These kids needed something different.

A common teaching mantra popped into my head:

“Teach the kids, not the lesson.”

I said a silent prayer and felt prompted to share a lengthy personal story with the kids— one that I would usually avoid because it involved me just talking for a long time, which isn’t always engaging.

I have no clue why I was prompted to share that story. No kid ever said anything to me afterwards, other than a customary “thanks for the lesson” as they walked out the door.

Maybe I was the only one who needed to learn the lesson that day.

Because I learned that the Spirit gives me words to say and to write.

That was the first time that I can remember having my formal plans being completely overthrown by a spiritual prompting.

But it’s happened time and time again since then.

I plan out a post to write, and as I start writing, I completely change direction.

I think of a testimony to bear, and while speaking, I share completely new thoughts.

But letting the Spirit guide me doesn’t mean throwing caution to the wind and relying on Him to do all the work.

I still prepare.

I still lesson plan and craft and create.

But it’s the calm feeling that I know I might follow my plans to a T, or I might throw them out the window.

And either way, it’s all good.

Amazing preparation + being filled with the Spirit = the best teaching possible.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

The post Preparation and the Spirit first appeared on Come Follow Me Study with Cali Black.