Build Your Immunity
From “Spiritual Immunity,” by Elder Christian C. Chigbundu · Saturday afternoon session, October 2026 General Conference
The big idea
Small and simple things done daily—scripture study, prayer, the sacrament, and covenants—build spiritual immunity, giving us strength and courage through Jesus Christ to face hard things.
Objective
Youth will explain how one small daily practice builds spiritual strength and will commit to a seven-day plan for one practice, with a partner to check in.
Before you teach
- Read Elder Christian C. Chigbundu's talk, Spiritual Immunity. Know the story of the new missionary well enough to tell it in your own words.
- Bring paper, pens, and small slips of paper.
- Label four corners of the room: Scripture study, Prayer, The sacrament, Covenants.
- Ask youth to have the talk open in Gospel Library on a phone or to share with someone who does.
Lesson plan
Thirty minutes in 6 parts. Times are a guide; let the Spirit and the learners set the pace.
Sixty-second list
- As soon as the prayer ends, split into two or three teams. Each team has sixty seconds to list everything a person does to keep the body able to fight off sickness. Longest list wins.
- Have the winning team read its list. Ask what the items have in common. Draw out that they are small, ordinary, and repeated.
- Explain that during the health crisis of 2020, Elder Chigbundu kept hearing the word immunity in health sessions at his work, and he began to think about what he calls spiritual immunity.
What are we up against?
- Give each person a slip. Ask them to write, without a name, one thing that weighs on people their age. Collect the slips and read several aloud without comment.
- Ask someone to read the first key quote (T11.04). Point out that Elder Chigbundu says that, frightening as our challenges may be, we need not fear.
- Read Alma 37:6 together and ask the question below.
- Honestly, does it seem believable that small things could help with what is on those slips? Why or why not?
Four corners
- Send a team to each corner. Using the talk on their phones, each team has five minutes to prepare a thirty-second case for its practice.
- Each case needs three parts: one sentence from Elder Chigbundu's talk about the practice, the scripture he cites, and one real example of how it would help with something from the slips.
- Scriptures for each corner: Mosiah 1:6–7 for scripture study; Doctrine and Covenants 88:63 for prayer; Doctrine and Covenants 20:77, 79 for the sacrament. The covenants corner uses the words of President Oaks that Elder Chigbundu quotes.
- Hear the four cases. Thank each team by naming something specific it said well.
- Sum up with Elder Chigbundu's phrase from the third key quote: these four are the armor of God.
The missionary who wanted to go home
- Tell the story: when Elder Chigbundu was serving as a mission leader, a new missionary cried in his welcome interview and asked to be sent home. He could not find words to explain why. Asked whether he had a testimony of the Book of Mormon, he said he did not.
- Continue: Elder Chigbundu bore his testimony and encouraged him to study the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon. The missionary and his trainer made a scripture study plan. Later he wrote that daily study had helped him understand his purpose. Read his words in the second key quote (T11.13).
- Ask the questions below. For the second one, share Elder Lebethoa's sentence and President Uchtdorf's sentence from the aligned quotes.
- The missionary could not explain what was wrong. When have you felt off and not known why?
- What if someone reads the scriptures and does not feel anything at first? What in this story, and in these two sentences, speaks to that?
A stronger back
- Read Mosiah 24:14–15 in pairs. Each pair decides: what did the Lord change, and what did He leave in place?
- Read the fourth key quote (T11.19). Tell briefly of the sister in Côte d'Ivoire who is battling cancer and told Elder Chigbundu that as she prays daily she realizes the Savior loves her.
- Ask the question below. Be gentle; some in the room may be carrying something that has not gone away.
- If the hard thing does not go away, what would it look like for the Lord to make you stronger in it?
Seven days, one thing
- Read Elder Chigbundu's two invitations aloud.
- Each person picks one of the four practices and writes a seven-day plan: what, what time, and where. Those with phones set a daily reminder now.
- Pair up. Partners agree on a day midweek to check in with each other in person or by message.
- Check understanding: ask two volunteers to finish this sentence in their own words—Spiritual immunity is…
- Point to the promise in the first key quote, bear your testimony of the Savior, and say you will ask next week how the seven days went. Begin next week's class with that question.
Key passages from the talk
“As we build our spiritual immunity, we develop the strength and courage to withstand the challenges of life.”
“I am happy now and do not want to be sent home any longer.”
“While they may seem small and simple, they are truly the armor of God that will help us stand against the tactics of the devil!”
“The burden we carry may not always be removed, but our backs will be built to carry the load placed upon them”
The speaker’s direct invitations
“I invite you to search the scriptures diligently, that you might know the word of God”
“I invite you to always remember scriptures, prayers, the sacrament, and covenants.”
Scriptures
- Alma 37:6 Read together in the second segment, right after the slips, to state the principle; the words appear in the talk.
- Mosiah 24:14–15 Read in pairs in the fifth segment; decide what the Lord changed and what He left in place.
- Doctrine and Covenants 88:63 The prayer corner reads it and uses it in its thirty-second case.
- Mosiah 1:6–7 The scripture study corner reads it and finds what King Benjamin asked his sons to do.
Other voices that agree
“the method, timing, and length of our scripture study matter less than the consistency and sincerity of our effort”
“Spiritual growth is rarely dramatic at the beginning.”
Three things to remember
- Spiritual strength is built by small things done every day.
- The Lord may not take the hard thing away, but He will make me stronger.
- Scriptures, prayer, the sacrament, and covenants are armor I can put on now.
Ways to act this week
- Follow your seven-day plan for one practice, at the time and place you wrote down.
- Check in with your partner midweek and tell the truth about how it is going.
- During the sacrament on Sunday, ask silently what the Savior would have you do this week.
- Like the missionary and his trainer, make a simple scripture study plan with a friend or family member.
Suggestions written for this lesson, not the speaker’s words.
Music
- As I Search the Holy Scriptures
- Did You Think to Pray?
Adapting the lesson
- At home or with three or four youth: skip the corners. Let each person choose one practice, find its paragraph in the talk, and teach it to the others in one minute.
- With a large class: put two teams in each corner and hear the stronger case from each.
- If time is short: do the sixty-second list, the missionary story, and the seven-day plan.
This lesson is an independent study aid written for this site. It is not an official lesson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Quotations are word for word from the official talk; paragraph numbers count the paragraphs of the talk as published at churchofjesuschrist.org, not counting headings or picture captions. The activities, questions and ideas for acting are suggestions; follow the Spirit and adapt them to those you teach.