Family Home Evening

Clean-up time!  Here's another one I thought I had scheduled to post sometime in December!  A great goal for the new year is to make a plan for family home evening so it's easier for you and your family to stick to it!

An important part of personal and family preparedness is being spiritually prepared. Attending church meetings and classes are important and even more important is teaching our families in our homes.

For some reason, FHE is something that is easy for me to put off. But, this is my most important calling, more important that Cub Scouts, Nursery, Wheat Watchers, Visiting Teaching and any other teaching I do in my home. I think it is easy for me to let it slide because I do take the opportunities every day to teach my children true and correct principles. However, that is not enough. We have been told repeatedly since 1915 that it is of utmost importance to hold Family Home Evening once a week. Our families need a specific time when they know we are teaching them the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is most easily done when we have a plan. Even if your plan is only centered on a specific day, time and place to meet together, that is a good plan. To make it even easier, I suggest to make a lesson schedule or topic plan. Then you already know what to prepare when it's time to teach. Aside from the standard "assignment wheel", here are a few ideas I've learned about:

Monthly theme - Choose a gospel topic or principle to focus on for an entire month. Divide your weekly activities between lessons/activities/service all centered around that theme. This can develop testimonies of that principle in many aspects of daily life and give opportunities to each individual to feel the spirit in their own way. You could use this idea with a weekly schedule too.

Weekly schedules - Follow a schedule similar to Sunday lessons. This idea is more fully explained HERE. Choose your lesson source/topic according to the week of the month. First week: Church magazine, second/third week: Gospel principle, fourth week: scripture story, fifth week: secular topic (finances, emergency preparedness, household help, fire drills, first aid, service project, super activity.)

Join an FHE group - If you're children have moved away or haven't yet joined your family, create or join a Family Home evening group with neighbors and friends. You can decide to meet every week or only once a month. This is a great way to get to know your neighbors and to put some fun into your FHEs.

Invite your family back - In my family we gather on the first Monday each month with my aunts, uncles and cousins for a Family Home Evening. Each family takes a turn providing a lesson or activity along with a simple meal. It's a fun tradition that my kids LOVE. I love that they know my aunts and uncles and cousins' children too. Invite your grown-up kids and their families back to your home for an evening.

Join an FHE packet group - Think of it as plug and play for FHE. Although there is usually some preparation involved. Packets can give young families a great head start. Make multiple copies of one packet and exchange with other families. Our enrichment group should be starting again after Christmas - watch for sign-ups in RS.

Suggested topics/resources that can keep you going for a few months - A very short list, it could be un-ending! Please try to use Church produced materials as much as possible :)
My Gospel Standards
Faith in God
Duty to God
Personal Progress
Pres. Hinckley's 9 Be's
Articles of Faith (great missionary tools for grown-ups too!)
Preach My Gospel
True to the Faith
Book of Mormon Stories (now on DVD too!)

The Public Library has some CD's and DVD's available to use as well.  Of course there are many, many online resources available too.  Please make sure what ever resource you choose to use, that it follows gospel doctrines and uses church resources as much as possible.  Here are a few of my favorites

sugardoodle.net

mormonshare.com

lds.about.com

yahoo!groups

the idea door

Just do something more this year to prepare yourself and your family to meet the challenges and opportunities ahead of us!

Lesson on the Garage Roof

Steven K. and Robert S. Patterson, “Lesson on the Garage Roof,” Ensign, Apr. 1988, 55

After the signal from Dad to commence our family’s mock disaster, each person ran in a different direction. We passed each other in the hallways of the house like busy ants, gathering needed items. With no preparation, we were forced to decide on the run just what we needed. Some of us tried to carry too much; others, in haste, forgot essentials. Mother purposely struggled, hoping someone would help her.

Our goal—to reach the safety of the garage roof in ten minutes.

Once assembled there, we looked around self-consciously, hoping our neighbors were all inside. No such luck! There stood Joe, in the yard next door, trying not to be obvious as he observed our every move. How embarrassing!

Earlier, Dad had called us together for home evening and told us that we would work together as a family to see how we would react in the event of a major citywide crisis. It had sounded like fun, because normally we were not allowed on the garage roof. Father had given each of us just ten minutes to gather what we believed were essentials. It had been exciting!

There we sat, wondering what the six of us must look like. Surrounded by our blankets, sleeping bags, crackers, bread, canned food (and no can opener), cookies, books, genealogy records, and scriptures, we soon forgot Joe and the rest of the neighborhood and began concentrating on the lesson.

We reflected on Lehi’s dream as he and his family were ridiculed by those in the spacious building. (See 1 Ne. 8:26–27.) We came to appreciate, at least partially, the feelings they must have had as they were sent from their home on short notice. And we remembered Noah’s persistence amidst peer ridicule. Dad reminded us that our present circumstance was a result of obedience to a father’s guidance, just as Lehi’s and Noah’s families’ had been in days of old.

As we took stock of our provisions, we found that our last-minute scramble had left us ill equipped for such an emergency. Our disjointed, uncoordinated efforts had not only resulted in serious oversights, but had also shown some degree of selfishness and lack of concern for each other.

As we spent that evening on the roof, enjoying a beautiful summer sunset, watching our neighbors cutting lawns and gardening, several lessons were indelibly fixed in our minds because of this unique family home evening experience. We drank our juice, ate whatever food was not in tins, and came to know each other better. We strengthened our family bonds through this evening on the roof.

We were each impressed deeply with the lessons of the evening: the need to follow parents’ inspired counsel, be prepared for emergencies, care for family members, follow commandments—even under the uncomfortable observation of others—and have faith in the Lord.

Some time later, at a stake conference, our father shared our experiences with an amused congregation. Our faces reddened at the time, but we still find today that there are people who remember us as the “garage roof” family.