October 2026 General Conference › Lessons › President Timothy L. Farnes › Youth

30-minute lesson · Youth · Ages 11–18: classes, quorums, or home

Look Again

From “Divine Appointments,” by President Timothy L. Farnes · Saturday afternoon session, October 2026 General Conference

Watch the talkRead the full talk

The big idea

Because we have promised to follow Jesus Christ, we look for the person God places in our path and help them, the way the Savior would.

Objective

Youth will be able to explain the pattern of seeing, feeling compassion and acting, and will choose one place this week where they will look up and help someone.

Before you teach

  • Read President Farnes’s talk, “Divine Appointments.” Know the airport story (T10.24–T10.38) well enough to tell it.
  • Bring paper and pens for teams, and a timer (a phone works).
  • Write on the board: SEE → FEEL → ACT.
  • Ask the youth to have their scriptures or the Gospel Library app ready.

Lesson plan

Thirty minutes in 6 parts. Times are a guide; let the Spirit and the learners set the pace.

3 min0–3

Looking is not seeing

  1. Start right away. Put the youth in pairs, facing each other, and give them 15 seconds to look at their partner without talking.
  2. Have them turn back to back. Ask three quick questions each person answers quietly to their partner: What color are your partner’s shoes? Is your partner wearing a watch or a bracelet? What is in your partner’s hands?
  3. Let them turn around and check. Enjoy the laughter, then ask the question below and take two answers.
Ask
  • You were looking straight at them. Why did you miss it?
6 min3–9

The missionary with the alarm clock

  1. Explain that President Farnes, the Young Men General President, told of waiting at an airport with his wife, Linsey, with his earbuds in and a book open.
  2. Have three youth read T10.25, T10.26 and T10.27 aloud from their phones, one paragraph each. Stop after the first sentence of T10.26, where he goes back to his book, and ask the first question.
  3. Finish T10.26–T10.27, then tell the rest in your own words: the elder was far from his home country, alone on a plane for the first time, and holding the clock so he would not miss the flight. President and Sister Farnes walked him to the gate. He was the last to board, and the only empty seat was next to President Farnes. When they landed, they walked him arm in arm to the baggage claim, and he hugged them before he greeted his mission leaders.
  4. Ask the second question.
Ask
  • Be honest: why is it so easy to look back down at the book, or the phone?
  • What made the difference between the first look and the second?
6 min9–15

Find the pattern

  1. Make teams of two or three. Give each team paper and a pen.
  2. Challenge: read Luke 10:30–35 and list every single thing the Samaritan did for the wounded traveler. Three minutes on the timer. The team with the longest accurate list wins.
  3. Have the winning team read their list. Then ask every team to circle the one action that had to come first.
  4. Read T10.20 aloud, beginning where President Farnes says others saw an inconvenience or an interruption. Point to the board: see, feel, act.
Ask
  • The others on that road saw the same man. What did the Samaritan see that they did not?
5 min15–20

Why we do this

  1. Ask the youth to open to D&C 20:77 and find two things: what we tell Heavenly Father we are willing to do, and what He promises us. Take answers.
  2. Read the key quote from T10.17 about what it means to take the Savior’s name upon us.
  3. Tell the first story briefly: years ago, when President Farnes was a discouraged bishop, President Oaks (then Elder Dallin H. Oaks) stopped him in the temple, waited for him, and said, “Brother, tell me how you are really doing.” Five years later Elder Oaks did not remember it. He said, “But it’s what we do. Isn’t it?”
  4. Ask the question below. Give them ten seconds of quiet before anyone answers.
Ask
  • If someone ran into you at school this week, what of Jesus Christ would they experience?
6 min20–26

Thirty-second rescues

  1. Keep the same teams. Give each team one made-up situation: (1) someone new is eating alone at lunch; (2) a friend who is usually loud in the group chat has gone silent for three days; (3) a younger child at a Church activity is standing by the wall; (4) a teammate walks off after a bad game without talking to anyone.
  2. Each team has two minutes to plan a 30-second role play that shows all three steps: what they would notice, what the other person might be feeling, and one thing they would actually say or do.
  3. Watch each role play. After each one, have the class name the see, the feel and the act.
  4. Read President Chibota’s aligned quote about learning a name. Then raise the honest worries below and let the youth answer each other.
Ask
  • What if it is awkward, or they do not want help?
  • President Farnes almost missed it and felt embarrassed. What does it mean to you that the Spirit prompted him to look again?
4 min26–30

This week’s challenge

  1. Read both invitations from T10.39. Share the promise: the Lord promises that we can always have His Spirit with us, and with that gift we can minister as the Savior would (T10.18).
  2. Challenge: for seven days, pray each morning for eyes to see. Pick one place where you will take the earbuds out and look up (the bus, the hallway, lunch, the foyer). Help one person.
  3. Have each youth type the place into a note on their phone, or write it on paper, and finish this line: This week I will look up at…
  4. Check for understanding: ask one youth to explain see, feel, act to the class in one sentence.
  5. Tell them next week begins with two minutes of reports: who did you see? Bear a brief testimony that the Savior sees each of them.

Key passages from the talk

“Seeing awakened compassion. Compassion moved him to act. And his actions changed a life forever.”

President Farnes’s talk, paragraph 20

“That means we choose to see as He sees, feel as He feels, and do as He would do.”

President Farnes’s talk, paragraph 17

“But the Spirit prompted me to look again.”

President Farnes’s talk, paragraph 26

“What once looked like random encounters become invitations from the Lord to minister with compassion.”

President Farnes’s talk, paragraph 22

The speaker’s direct invitations

“let us pray every day for eyes to see the divine appointments God places before us!”

President Farnes’s talk, paragraph 39

“Let us put compassion into action and minister to the person in front of us.”

President Farnes’s talk, paragraph 39

Scriptures

  • Luke 10:30–35 Team challenge in segment 3: list everything the Samaritan did, then circle what had to come first.
  • D&C 20:77 Read in segment 4. Find what we say we are willing to do and what Heavenly Father promises us.
  • Mosiah 2:17 Optional memory verse for the week: read it together at the close and ask whom we are really serving when we help the person in front of us.

Other voices that agree

“Often, helping others feel seen as children of God begins with something as simple as learning their name.”

President Chibota · A Child of God, paragraph 4

“a true disciple of Jesus Christ is quick to help and slow to judge”

Elder Sinclair · Quick to Help, Slow to Judge, paragraph 6

Three things to remember

  • When I take the sacrament, I promise to see, feel and do as the Savior would.
  • The people around me are not random. Some of them are invitations from the Lord.
  • If I miss it the first time, the Spirit can prompt me to look again.

Ways to act this week

  • Pray every morning for seven days for eyes to see who needs you that day.
  • Choose one place to take your earbuds out and look up, and stick with it all week.
  • Learn the name of one person you see often but have never spoken to, and use it.
  • When you notice someone and feel that small nudge, act within a minute, before you talk yourself out of it.

Suggestions written for this lesson, not the speaker’s words.

Music

  • Lord, I Would Follow Thee

Adapting the lesson

  • At home or with one or two youth: do the Luke 10 list together against the timer, and talk through one situation in place of the role plays.
  • Large class: run the role plays in two halves of the room at once and have each half pick one to show everyone.
  • Short on time: keep segments 1, 2 and 6, and read the T10.20 quote as you point to the board.

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.