FHE: Temples

I've been reading through the new Young Women's personal progress booklet and I set it down and my 2-year-old daughter started flipping through it and pointing to pictures she knew- "It's Jesus!",  "The Temple!" etc.  I asked her if she knew what the temple was for, and she said, "no," so I decided to change my FHE topic to be on temples this week.

We have a big picture of the Salt Lake Temple in our family room, and I have the special Temple Ensign issue that has lots of pictures in it that I let the kids flip through while we talked about temples- what they are for.  We just talked about how we go there to make covenants and the perform ordinances for ourselves and people who didn't get to have them while on Earth.  We talked about how you have to be 12 to go in, and you have to have a temple recommend, which we showed them.

We did all these while looking through that Temple magazine and pointing out all the temples, but that was too long.  I should have gone through and marked particular pages- a couple temples from around the world, the baptismal font, celestial room, and the page for kids that talks about what you need to do to prepare to go to the temple.  (Though I can see that being a whole FHE on its own.)

After, I had planned to look through our wedding photo album all together, but the kids were done, so we just had treats.

FHE: Tithing

At the prodding of my younger sister, I decided to do a lesson on tithing.  We called it "The Parable of the M&Ms".  (you could also use jelly beans or skittles, etc)

(I copied their idea here minus the banks because my kids are so young we still don't give them money, but maybe when they're older I'd do that)

I brought out the mega Costco bag of M&Ms that we use to refill the "potty treat" cup in the bathroom and started throwing my head back and eating them very deliberately.  Of course the kids were immediately on top of me, trying to stick their hands in the bag too.  "oh, you want some of these?"  (yesssss) "ok, well (pulling out two ziploc bags with 100 M&Ms inside) I will give you these, if you only give me 10 back"  It was an easy decision for them to make and my 4-year-old enjoyed showing off his ability to count to 10 :)  While they ate some M&Ms I told them about how everything we have we owe to our Heavenly Father- bodies, Earth, abilities, everything, and in return, he just wants us to keep his commandments.  One of his commandments is to pay our tithing.  I explained what it meant and then we talked about what tithing money is used for- churches, temples, supplies, etc. and daddy's salary (he works at BYU).  We also talked about how we get even more blessings for paying our salary- so it's more like trading in 10 measly M&Ms and getting back a giant Snickers bar.

I thought it went over very well.  And it was convenient to have the treat built in.

FHE: Remembering our Ancestors

My Grandma passed away last year and her birthday was yesterday.  It makes me sad that my kids will never get to know their "gi-gi" like I did and so I thought it would be fun to spotlight her.

I set my computer up to play a slideshow of all the pictures of her I have and I just told them about some of my memories of her and things I love about her.  We had a treat that reminded me of her too :)

The kids weren't honestly that interested, but I think they might be when they're a bit older.  Still, I liked celebrating her in my own way.

FHE: Godhead

I've recently been called to the YW presidency and the new curriculum that started this year has a gospel topic each month.  I thought I would plan at least one Family Home Evening lesson each month using this topic, even though my kids are much much too young for the Youth Program, just to get me thinking about it.

I got a triangle and said it represented the Godhead, and asked if they knew what it was.  They guessed a member and I taped Jesus' picture to a corners as they guessed, and gave clues to the members they didn't know.  I used the pictures of Jesus and Heavenly Father from the picture of Joseph's 1st Vision and then wrote "Holy Ghost" on a piece of paper.

We talked about how they were all related and that they are one in purpose and which ones have bodies or not.  I also told them that this is one of the distinguishing differences between our religion and some others, in that we believe Heavenly Father has a body because Joseph Smith and Stephen (in the Bible) among others have seen it.  We also believe they are three separate beings.  Whereas some other religions do not think Heavenly Father has a body and think He, Jesus and the Holy Ghost are all one person.

I thought about playing some kind of game where you say a characteristic of one of them and get the kids to answer who it goes to, but they were quite cranky tonight and we opted to end so we could put them to bed.

FHE: Answers to Prayer

FHE was a day late this week...

I based this lesson off something in the January 2013 Ensign right after the First Presidency message which is about getting answers to prayer.  There was a little scripture chase for Primary aged children and I used 4 of those 5 scriptures.  I printed them out (double-sided) with a corresponding picture on the back and hid them around the room for the kids to find.  When someone found one, we would all stop and read the scripture and talk about it.

We reviewed while we ate our treat.

I'm glad I only did 4 out of the 5 recommended scriptures because though my 4-year-old was very attentive for the first 2, by the 4th he was having a harder time listening.