What is Family Home Evening

Leaders of The Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-Day Saints have instructed members to set aside Monday night as "family home evening." This is a time for families to study the gospel together and to do other activities that strengthen the family spiritually, create family memories, and increase unity and love. To learn more visit this website.

Why Family Home Evening

"I wonder if having unplanned and infrequent family home evenings will be enough to fortify ourselves and our children with sufficient moral strength to meet the complexities of our day. Infrequent family scripture study may be inadequate to arm ourselves and our children with the virtue necessary to withstand the moral decay of the environment in which we live. Where in the world will we learn chastity, integrity, honesty, and basic human decency if not at home? These values will, of course, be reinforced at church, but teaching them in family home evening can be particularly consistent and effective. To combat the world's evil influences, we need the strength that comes from family home evening."

James E. Faust, “Enriching Our Lives through Family Home Evening,” Ensign, Jun 2003, 2–6

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Lesson 41 Being Dependable

Today's lesson was on Being Dependable. We had opening exercises in Relief Society then we all went to the YW room. We had three young women, a very small class. So, rather than splitting the classes we met together. Our plan worked perfectly. In fact, it worked too perfectly. We walked into the room and I announced that since we were meeting together today Sis. D. would be teaching. Well, Sis. D., the advisor, wasn't scheduled to teach until Fast Sunday's. So, it was easy for her to say she wasn't prepared. Oh, NO! Whose teaching?! I looked around at the other leaders and asked them if they had prepared. Nope. No one had, they said. What is the lesson about? Don't Know! What was last week's lesson and one of the girls reminded us it was on learning to love ourselves. Does anyone have a book? Nope. Oh, then I will just look in my purse and see what I have in there. One YW said we could just make something up, maybe discuss something from the For Strength of Youth Pamphlet. How sweet. I pulled out of my purse some colored paper that I had printed the lesson onto so that I wouldn't have to bring my manual along. I announced that today's lesson would be about "Being Dependable" I had the lesson, quotes to handout, a skit to play (the Cindy story found here), and handouts (see above). One yw said "Wow, you're really prepared!" I thought they had figured it out. I must've forgotten to really make it clear that we had played a practical joke on them because at the end when we were talking about our "mix-up" at the beginning of the class the leaders and I were laughing because we weren't sure if we could pull it off without laughing or being believable. I admitted that I'm not a very good actress and cannot usually pull something like that off. Then, the one YW said "That was all acting!?" The other said she couldn't figure out if was a joke or not but found it coincidental that the lesson being taught fit so well that it must've been planned. How funny! We all had a good laugh. I hope this will be one they will remember for a long time. I just wish all of the other YW had been there, too.

Preparing for Change

This next Sunday's Young Women lesson is from Manual 3, Chapter 42, Preparing for Change. I have made this handout for the lesson. I thought about incorporating a bit of the book "Who Moved My Cheese" but decided against it because it's really not church approved.