Our Family Home Evening

[just me]

I told my kids we were having Family Home Evening and then we'd watch a movie together.

My 5 year old DD said "what's that?"

We used the Book of Mormon Stories book and did chapter 2. Lehi's vision of warning and him warning the people of Jerusalem.
So, we talked about our own visions that we've had and how "repent" means a change of mind/heart.
My DD said that when she does something wrong her heart turns black and then when she repents it "changes" to red. I told her she had a pure heart and my 12 year old DS told her she was lucky.
Oh, then we discussed how we can help make a loving community.

I don't know what I was so afraid of. I think I can do this. Thanks to everyone here for all the suggestions and support!

[swimordie]

That's great just me!

We did fhe recently too and my seven year old taught the lesson based on his primary lesson about the Holy Ghost. There was a great discussion about what we "hear" when the spirit speaks to us. And, I read some passages of the sermon on the mount from the Jefferson bible .

Then we watched the replay of my ten year old's football game from the previous Saturday. Refreshments were Mexican food. We hadn't had dinner yet. My boys actually look forward to this. Which is a huge change from when I was a kid and my siblings and I dreaded the whole thing.

[MadamCurie]

We had a pretty great FHE tonight. Didn't do much in the way of a lesson, though. Some friends came over - they have a little girl our DS's age and they go to day-care together - and we said a prayer, had dinner, played with the dog, and watched a movie. The kids played with legos and destroyed the house. A good time was had by all!

[hawkgrrrl]

We've decided that we're going to rewatch GC talks one at a time as a family for our next several FHEs and then talk about them. They can sit still for the few minutes each talk runs, and then we can play Mexican dominoes or Apples to Apples (some games our kids can all play despite age differences). This is the plan. In reality, though, we got sidelined by homework last week and this week I had to fly to NYC on business. So, we're 0 for 2 so far on that plan. But we'll keep trying.

[Heber13]

What a great example from you all on things you're doing in your home.

That gives me some ideas of things I want to do next week...in particular, the idea to keep trying to hold FHE.

Last night we went to watch my daughter sing in a school choir. We didn't do a lesson, but we all went as a family together to support my daughter.

I like the idea of watching Conference, maybe we'll do that soon.

We rotate assignments with the kids...it is my turn to do a lesson...and I've got a lesson prepared on tolerance and love, that often we see things differently than the way others see it, but that is what makes our family, our ward, our world a better place, is having a variety. I will probably use food as the object lesson...anyone have ideas for an object lesson on variety, tolerance, and love?

[just me]

Heber, I think you could use a variety of fruit. Point out that even though they all grow differently, taste and look different, they are all yummy and healthy and good.It would be boring if we could only eat apples all the time!

I like the idea of watching one GC talk at a time! My kids didn't watch conference. There were some really nice talks on love, family and following the Spirit.

[Poppyseed]

Just me, I am so excited you experiened a break thru. That is awesome.

[Fiannan]

Please -- more good ideas.

[Heber13]

Please -- more good ideas.

A few weeks ago...I went and got a large DQ mint oreo blizzard (my kids' fav).

Each kid had a spoon and we each took a bite and they loved that part of the lesson.

I then took some yellow mustard and squirted a bunch all over the top of the blizzard...and they all freaked out asking what they heck I was doing?

I asked if anyone wanted to taste it now. Of course, my 10 yr old son was brave (or stupid) and said he'd try it...and took a big spoonful and quickly ran to the sink to spit it out and held his tongue under the kitchen faucet. He said that was nasty!

So, I pretty much told them the whole thing was ruined and I was going to throw it out. They stopped me saying that was such a waste. My older girls took it from me, used a spoon to scrape out the mustard into the sink, leaving still plenty of good, clean, and untainted yummy oreo blizzard in the cup, no longer touching any mustard, and we all continued to enjoy the rest of it.

I told them it would have been a waste if we threw it all out, when they were still able to enjoy the rest of it once they got past the mustard topping and got rid of all that. Just because one bad thing happens, doesn't mean all is lost and we throw out everything.

I told them that life and friendships and loving others is like this. If someone says one bad thing that hurts your feelings, you can let it ruin your whole day, or you can still enjoy the rest of the day despite one bad part (my girls get pretty emotional and dramatic at high school...so this was mostly directed to them). Sometimes others do or say things that hurt our feelings or we don't like something about somebody...that doesn't mean we hate them and throw out the whole friendship. We can still find plenty of other parts of the friendship well worth keeping, and it would be a shame to ruin a nice friendship over one small mustardy-type thing. We then talked about finding the good in others or in situations, and not focusing on the bad.

We also talked about how it is the same with ourselves. There is plenty of good in each of us that God loves, and if we make a mistake or have one bad thing happen, we can repent and get rid of that part (just like scooping out the mustard) and God still sees the rest of us that is worth keeping. So when we do something wrong, get rid of it, and love the other parts of ourselves that are still good. If God is willing to do that for us, we should be willing to do that with others.

There are plenty of scriptures you can incorporate into this as well.

They loved that lesson (it helped that my son made it fun when he took a spoonful of mustard covered ice cream!)

I didn't realize it at the time, but I was actually bearing my testimony of how I am currently working on the mustard-type problems I see in the church...and that I am trying to accept the good stuff about the church, and get rid of the bad stuff I don't like about church...but realize for me it would be such a waste to get rid of the church in my life because there is more good in it than bad. I think I can still separate out the bad...they're not all mixed in together that it is all ruined...just parts of it don't appeal to me.

[just me]

Heber, that is awesome!

Something I use as a discussion starter for FHE with the kids is "what is the greatest commandment." They'll say things like obeying your parents and I'll usually have to guide them to Love God and Love your neighbor as yourself. This last time we talked about it my 12 year old was able to see that we also have to love ourselves so we got to talk about the importance of loving ourselves, too.

Sometimes we'll talk about this at prayer time. I figure you can't talk about love too much.