"Monday Nights in Jerusalem"

Hello everyone! Yes, I am still alive. And my latest book "Monday Nights in Jerusalem" will be available soon.

This book is based on the Old Testament, which can seem overwhelming to study from. But this book makes it easy. There are 30 stories and lessons that are ready to go. NO preparation or prior understanding of the scriptures needed. Quick, easy, and effective!

Each lesson includes a background story with questions that help with comprehension and also with application of the important lessons taught in the Old Testament. There are easy to understand definitions for difficult or unknown words, and thoughts and quotes to help enhance your study. The verses that pertain to each story are also included for scripture study.

This book is a great tool for family home evening, family scripture study, and for primary and sunday school teachers. Don't get overwhelmed; preparing fun, spiritual experiences with stories and principles from the Old Testament is a snap with "Monday Nights in Jerusalem".

Long Over Due Post - "Our Family is Great" FHE lesson

Isn't it ironic that when you work really hard trying to come up with great posts that hardly anyone visits your blog? And then when you go a month and a half without writing ANY posts, you check your counter and see that you've gotten more visits than ever? I find that both humorous and depressing!

Anyway, I thought I'd write a post today to keep my blog alive. I just need to think of one....
Hmmm...good Family Home Evening idea.....what should I write about????

Ok, here's one!

Gather your kids around you tonight, open up your old picture albums that you haven't looked at in years (or drag out the shoebox full of good intentions) and talk about what a wonderful, loving family you are (even if you don't feel like you are). Take time to look at each picture and reminisce about the things you've done together.

And be sure to take the time to point out all the GOOD things you're kids have done over the years and why you are so grateful Heavenly Father sent them to you. Tell them specific things that you love about each of them; make them feel loved and wanted. Who could ask for a better family night than that? Easy, effective, and enlightening!

P.S. If you try ANY of these ideas and like them, please comment or email me and let me know.
Thanks!

FHE Theme Idea - "Love at Home"

Below is a reader submitted idea. Thanks Debs, I appreciate you sharing your idea with us! And please fellow readers, if you have any ideas (while my well is still dry) please send them my way, I'd like to keep the blog going since I know that soon I will be up and running and feeling more like myself (I have started writing my next book, so that is a big accomplishment!)

"I would like to share an idea that i have had recently in my attempt to make my single parent family that bit stronger in these trying times.

This year i have given us a theme, Love at Home. Each fhe we shall be working though various parts of family life, personal roles, financial freedom, preparedness, organisation and temple and eternal perspectives to name a few, and doing all we can to strengthen and encourage each other.

So far my two children that are still at home are loving it and we get to have some fun scripture chases, share some simple and radical ideas, we identify with each other a little more and have a lot of giggles along the way. learing new hymns and giving thanks to our wonderful Heavenly Father is humbling and eye opening!!"

Movie Time

Sorry for not posting in a while, we've had a tough few weeks here. But if you're stopping by to get a quick, easy, fun, and purposeful FHE lesson for tonight, you've come to the right place.

I was speaking at an Enrichment night this last week and one of the women in the audience commented that her kids (ages 4 and 2, I think) love to act out scripture stories for FHE. And then I remembered that another friend had mentioned that they do this also and that they video record the movies. How fun is that? What kid doesn't like to watch themselves on TV? And what a great way to remember the story.

So pick a scripture story, tell it to your family, and then have the family act it out! Easy! And for the treat, pop some popcorn and watch the show.

(If anyone tries this idea, I'd love to hear about it.)

General Conference and FHE lessons

In the October 2007 General Conference, President Hinckley encouraged us to study the talks in Family Home Evening.

"All of the proceedings of this conference will appear in a subsequent issue of the Ensign and Liahona. We encourage you again to read the talks in your family home evenings and discuss them together as families. They are the products of much prayer and meditation and are well worthy of careful consideration."

Here are some suggestions on how to do this with both younger and older children. Please comment if you have additional suggestions.

* For younger children: Show them the magazine and tell them what it is. Show them the picture on the front of President Monson and teach them his name and that he is a prophet. Explain what a prophet is (someone who speaks the will of God for the church). Look through the photographs taken during conference and talk about them. Show the page with all the General Authorities and explain who they are. Have the children point out President Monson and his counselors, and teach them their names. You can have them look through the magazine and try to find which talks were given by the First Presidency or other apostles by looking at their pictures.

*For older children: Choose a few talks that you feel your family might need at this time. Write down the title of each of these talks on seperate pieces of paper. Then read through the talks and copy and paste from your computer (or write on paper) a paragraph or two from that talk that best summarizes the objective. Place the talk titles on the floor and then pass out the paragraphs to each member of the family to have them read a loud. Try to match up the paragraph with the title. Remind the family that the topics of each talk were prayed about and given for the membership of the church at this time. Discuss why each talk is important to your family and how you can apply the teachings in their lives.

It might also be helpful to have the children find each author of the talk on the picture chart in the magazine. This is a good way for them to learn the names and faces of the General Authorities.

*For teenagers: Have them read through the Conference talks and choose one to give a lesson on. Giving a lesson on a talk is a great way to learn and reinforce the principles taught.

Ides for FHE with Toddlers

Okay you guys, since I know that many of you who read this blog, have little children, I'd like you to share what you do for Family Home Evening. I think that there's a misconception that everyone else is having these long, elaborate, consistently great family night's, but I don't think that's the norm. So SHARE! Even if you think what you do is lame, or boring, or not spiritual enough, it doesn't matter, I want you to share some of your ideas.

And I'll go first. Last week we decided to try one of my reader submitted responses and watch the scripture stories at lds.org. I figured I'd be lucky if little Ben sat through one of them, but lo and behold he sat through 2! And my older kids wanted to watch more (we watched about 5 of them). We also sang nursery songs that Ben knows so he was able to participate. It was fun and simple and easy. Afterwards we rode our bikes over to the gas station and got a treat.

Ok, so now it's your turn. Click on the comments box and SHARE! (And seriously, if you don't share, then I'm going to boycott you all and stop posting. Ok, maybe that's a little extreme, but come on, I know you can do it!) Oh, and by the way, my contest ends this week. I'll post the winner next week.

FHE Lesson/Game Idea - Partake of the Fruit

For the lesson read the story of the "Tree of Life" in the Book of Mormon (1 Nephi 8:9-34), or if you have younger children, read the story out of the picture scriptures.

After telling the story, have the family help draw Lehi's dream on a large poster board or you can have each family member draw their own on regular sized paper. If you have older children, have them write the meaning of each item also (ie. The rod of iron = the word of God).

On a separate piece of paper, have each family member draw and cut out a piece of fruit.

Now it's time to play "Pin the fruit on the tree":

Hang the poster(s) on the wall and place a piece of tape on the back of each fruit piece. Take turns blindfolding and spinning around each member of the family and have them try to place their fruit on the tree. Whoever gets the closest to the tree wins! Allow the children to play as many times as you'd like. Have fun!

(Note: This game idea can be found in Monday Nights in Zarahemla pg. 136)

Easy Family Night Lesson

Here's a cute idea sent in by a reader. I love it! It's simple, easy, and effective...my kind of family night.

I like spending a whole FHE on teaching a primary song to my kids. I feel it's a good investment since songs stay with us far longer than words do. Here's a good way to sing a song over and over again without it getting laborious: Each time you sing a verse of "I want to Live the Gospel" (Children's Songbook 148) or any other song, allow a member of the family to choose how everyone will keep the beat. The motion could be tapping your head, patting your lap, spinning your arms, etc. as long as it can be done to the beat. After several turns, we focus on one important word or phrase such as the phrase "to know I am heard when I pray." I ask my kids, how can we know our prayers are heard? One obvious answer is to live the gospel since that's the name of the song. We allow a few comments and then continue our singing game!

Great FHE Resource for Young Children

I just picked a copy of the new nursery manual that the church just released. Not only is this a great resource for us nursery leaders, but as I was looking through it I realized what a terrific family home evening lesson book this would be for families with young children!

The lessons are short and easy and very age appropriate. All visual aids are arranged with the lessons - so no hunting them down, and there are even coloring pages and activity pages to go with each lesson.

I am very happy with the way this manual is laid out and feel that it is much easier for teachers to use, and for children to understand.

You can buy a copy online at www.ldscatalog.com
or at the distribution center. The cost is $5.50! You can't beat that! So no more excuses (hint, hint to myself :) for not having FHE lessons with our little ones.

Question

Below is a reader submitted question. Please send in any comments or suggestions you might have. Just click on "comments" below the post. Thanks!

I need some easy Family Home Evening lesson or game ideas for young children that actually teach a gospel principle. Any ideas that have worked for you? Please help!