The Scriptures Can Help Us with Today’s Problems

President Ezra Taft Benson at a priesthood leadership meeting said:
“When individual members and families immerse themselves in the scriptures regularly and consistently, these other areas of activity [Church activity, sacrament meeting attendance, number of missionaries, temple marriages] will automatically come. Testimonies will increase. Commitment will be strengthened. Families will be fortified. Personal revelation will flow” (in Ensign, May 1986, p. 81).
Story:
Have the assigned class member read the following story. Stop after the story and ask the class how the scriptures helped the person in the story.
Janet, a young teenager in the United States, walked into her seventh-grade science class to find her teacher “obviously upset by something. …
“He started the day’s lesson, not on science, but about the fact that the United States was facing a major military crisis. The Soviet Union was sending ships loaded with missiles to Cuba. Our president [the president of the United States] had set up a blockade to stop them.
“ ‘It could mean war,’ my teacher said, pounding the desk for emphasis. ‘The world as it is right now could end in half an hour. Do you all realize what a nuclear war would be like? It would be the end of the world!’ … I was terrified. … The rest of the day was a blur.
“I walked home from school that day with my science teacher’s words replaying in my mind. ‘The world could end in half an hour!’ … After dinner I sat down … to my homework. … After a while, I was tired of homework. … As I was sorting through a stack of paper, I picked up a bookmark that had been given to me as I had entered Beehives [Young Women] earlier that year. On the back was a reading list for the year. I had never noticed the list before. … I decided I would start reading a little of the first thing on the list—the Book of Matthew as translated by Joseph Smith, located in the Pearl of Great Price.
“Soon tears blurred my vision and a feeling of warm calm enveloped me as I read the 23rd verse: ‘And you also shall hear of wars, and rumors of wars; see that ye be not troubled, for all I have told you must come to pass; but the end is not yet’ (Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:23). …
“The fear and panic I had felt that day in science class were gone. I knew that our Heavenly Father was aware of us and that world events were proceeding as had been prophesied. I had no need to fear” (Janet Thomas, “The End Is Not Yet,” New Era, July 1986, p. 18).