Church Curriculum for 2012

by Allison Jones

This year in Priesthood and Relief Society meetings adults of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints will be studying from a new manual from the Teachings of Presidents of the Church series. It features George Albert Smith who was president of the church from 1945 to 1951. These are not issued in the order that the prophets served. This will be the first one with color pictures, teaching helps in each chapters, and references at the end of each section. Besides print copies available in 30 languages, PDF, audio, and ASL versions are available at lds.org.

George Albert Smith was the eighth president of the church following Heber J. Grant. His grandfather was a cousin to Joseph Smith Jr. so he is one of the few Smiths in church history who is not descended from Joseph or Hyram. May 1892 he married Lucy Woodruff and together they raised two girls and one boy, named after George. He served a short-term mission in southern Utah as well as a two year mission in the Southern States where his mission president was J. Golden Kimball. In 1903 he was called as an apostle but he was sustained before he had even been asked. In 1919 to 1921 he was the president of the European mission.

Adult Sunday School classes this year will be studying the Book of Mormon with the gospel doctrine manual. This is one of four manuals that we cycle through. There is one prepared for each of the standard works: the Old Testament, the New Testament (which we have just completed), The Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants and Church History.