Family Home Evening

I just read in the newspaper this morning how we need to cherish our families more.The leading psychologist at some University or another, reported a new study indicating that if the government encouraged parents to set aside an evening a week dedicated solely to family time we would be raising more conscious citizens....
In 1915 President Joseph F. Smith and his counselors in the First Presidency began a Churchwide effort to strengthen the family. They called on parents in the Church to gather their children once each week for a "Home Evening." Families were to take time to pray and sing together, read the scriptures, teach the gospel to one another, and participate in other activities that would build family unity.

In 1970 President Joseph Fielding Smith joined with his counselors in the First Presidency to designate Monday night as the time for family home evening. Since that announcement, the Church has kept Monday evenings free from Church activities so families can have this time together.

Latter-day prophets continue to urge Church members to give highest priority to family home evening. They have promised that our dedication to this program will help protect our families against the evils of our time and will bring us abundant joy now and throughout the eternities.

All members of the Church should make Monday evening a sacred time, reserved for family home evening. Those who are married should have weekly family home evening with their spouse. As couples have children, they should include them in family home evening, adapting the program to their needs and interests and letting them participate. After the children grow up and move away, couples should continue to hold family home evening together. www.lds.org

I am grateful for such inspired programs.

Tonight we had a lesson on Gratitude... it was wonderful, we discussed the 10 lepers (Luke 17:12-19) and how we need to see God's hand in our lives and be more grateful.. We each put a stone in our sock and a sweet candy in our mouths and walked around the room, we discussed how much sweeter the candy would be if we didn't have the stone to distract us. We talked about when we are ungrateful and complain it is like that stone, we cheat ourselves out of the 'sweet' things in life by not fully recognizing them. Then we played this fun game! We broke up into 2 teams (I had put each letter of the alphabet in a cookie jar previous to F.H.E) the gist of the game is whatever letter you pull out, the teams have to write down as many things that they can think of starting with this letter, that they are grateful for i.e/ "k" knowledge etc....if you have the same words as the other team they cancel each other out. The team with the most 'grateful words' left over wins! (well needless to say we had a hoot)
Each of the children received a small box of their favorite hard candy...with the idea that every time they take one out and suck on it, they take the time to think about what they are grateful for!
I am grateful for parents who raised us with Family Home Evenings and for Children who would not let a week go by without participating in our own.