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, October 19, 2008

The Word of God as a Standard

For the Young Women Manual 3 Lesson 37, The Word of God as a Standard, I prepared the following visual aids and handout.

To distinguish between Worldly Philosophies and Gospel Principles and Truths I created this table in order to discuss the topics one by one.

As we discuss the topics one by one, I prepared The Word of God as a Standard document for the youth to reference as we read and discussed them together. They are separated by the YW value colors.

Finally, I prepared this handout for the YW to take home.

None of the three Laurels that I teach attended this Sunday. So, I joined the Beehive class instead. In addition to using the Worldly Issue Poster, she used an orange with commandments written on it in permanent marker. She discussed how we are like the inside of that orange and when we follow those commandments that they help keep us afloat. Then, she placed the orange in a clear bowl of water to demonstrate that the orange floats while the peel representing those commandments is still surrounding the orange. After that she removed the peel and demonstrated how the orange now sinks to the bottom of the bowl. The commandments give us the ability, tools, and strength through our lives. (Idea found at Sugardoodle and described as follows: for an object lesson she had taken an orange and with a permanent pen wrote: chastity, temple marriage, pro-life, honesty, etc. She had a bowl of water and dropped the orange in it, after a second or two, it floated up!! She talked about the skin of the orange being kind of like a life jacket - keeping the orange a float - she likened this to the standards of our church. She then peeled the orange and asked the girls what they thought would happen if she put it back in the bowl - it sank of course! I thought this was a great object lesson for the girls that they could relate to. It was also good for them to hear each other talk about the differences between the world's view and ours. (Idea shared by Lynette Packard))

Friday, October 3, 2008

Scavenger Hunt

We had the most fun with this Scavenger Hunt. Even the adults wanted to join in. This is how it went. My counselor took pictures that morning of the building. She made sure to use items that would not move, would be there (like the cars), or they could access (meaning not using any rooms where classes would be taking place.) She made sure that within the picture there was enough information to distinguish between similar choices. For instance, the exit sign. It was the only one to the left of the door, rather than above the door. The outside windows, they were the only ones that had one smaller to the right of the larger with a bush, and so on. She did such a terrific job making us guess. I couldn't figure out how she took pictures of screwdrivers (see #2) that were even at the church and wouldn't be moved by that night. It turned out to be a New Era Mormonad behind the glass case/bulletin board. Do you know which one?

Here are the photos she took. She divided the girls into two teams. Each team had a different set of photos and a blank answer sheet numbered with numbers corrisponding with those in their set of pictures. The girls had so much fun running all over the building and outside of the building. It turned out only one item had been moved, which was the wood. She didn't realized that the YM were going to be using it that night and they had taken it.