Opening question
Think of a time when life felt genuinely dark, not just difficult, but the kind of hard where you didn't know what to hold onto. You don't need to share the details. But what did you find yourself reaching for? What actually helped?
Relief Society · Elders Quorum · 25 minutes
The Joy of a Covenant Relationship with GodRelief Society & Elders Quorum lesson
Elder Thierry K. Mutombo · Of the Seventy · Sunday Morning Session
Premium download
Recommended path
A 25-minute class
Mix and match to create one 25-minute interactive lesson. Swap any activity for an option below.
This class in one line
Covenants are how God delivers His love to us personally, and keeping them, especially in our darkest moments, is the path to enduring joy.
Skip rehearsing the details of Elder Mutombo's losses; let one sentence of context do the work and move quickly to the principles and discussion.
0–2Open2–5Hook5–20Discuss20–23Apply23–25Testify
Before Sunday
Send this to your class
Sunday: A talk about joy, covenants, and a family's hardest day
This Sunday we'll discuss a talk by Elder Thierry K. Mutombo called 'The Joy of a Covenant Relationship with God.' He shares how covenants held his family together through devastating loss, and what that means for all of us in our own hard seasons. Before Sunday, consider reading or listening to the talk at ChurchofJesusChrist.org. Ponder this: When life was hard, what has actually helped you keep going?
Pick one opening
Opening question
Think of a time when life felt genuinely dark, not just difficult, but the kind of hard where you didn't know what to hold onto. You don't need to share the details. But what did you find yourself reaching for? What actually helped?
Story hook
Elder Mutombo lost four children in the early years of his marriage. After the death of his nine-month-old son Allan, he held the baby's body in his arms and begged for a miracle. Then, after the funeral, extended family arrived and told him, without asking, that tradition required him to put his wife out of the house. He went inside. He prayed. And he came out with empty hands.
Teach this first
Covenants anchor us when everything else gives way
Elder Mutombo taught that our Heavenly Father has a special love for each person who enters into covenant with Him, and that love deepens as covenants are made and kept. In his hardest moment, it wasn't tradition or emotion that held his family together; it was the memory of his temple sealing and the promises he and Nathalie had made to God and to each other. Covenants are not just obligations, they are how God's love becomes personal and practical in our lives.
Elder Mutombo said he remembered 'the words of our temple sealing and the promises we made to God and to each other,' and in that moment he 'felt great peace and reassurance.'
Ask the class
- 1.When have you felt a covenant, baptismal or temple, actually do something for you, not just ask something of you?
- 2.Elder Mutombo came out of that house with empty hands, standing by his covenant when it cost him something. What makes covenant-keeping harder when the people around us expect something different?
If time remains
Sunday will come, but only at the end of a real Friday
Elder Mutombo reminded us that the despair of the crucifixion did not last forever, and then he made it personal: 'No matter how dark your days are, please remember that Sunday will come if you faithfully keep the covenants that you made with the Lord.' He wasn't minimizing hard things, he was pointing to the Resurrection as a literal promise that endings are not final.
Ask the class
- 1.How do you personally hold onto hope that 'Sunday will come' when you're still in the middle of a very long Friday?
Counsel together
Quorum / Relief Society business
- •As a quorum or Relief Society, what could we do to help members feel the weight and the comfort of their covenants, especially those going through something hard right now?
- •Elder Mutombo quoted President Oaks saying discipleship 'should guide us at all times and in all places.' Where in our lives do we find that hardest to live, and how do we support each other there?
Last 3–5 minutes
Close
This week, identify one covenant you have made with God, even a simple one, and do one deliberate thing to honor it. Notice whether you feel His love through that act.
Elder Mutombo taught that as we faithfully keep our covenants, God's divine love deepens, and that the peace and reassurance he felt in his hardest moment is available to us too.
Your witness: Share, in your own words, what covenants have meant to you personally, not as a concept, but as something real that has held you.