Family Home Evening

In the LDS faith every Monday is devoted to the family. The various units, or wards, around the world are not suppose to have any activities on this night so that families can spend time together. During this time the family has a lesson about something related to church, and of importance to the family. It is one of many ways that church goes beyond just Sunday worship.

Having not been LDS for extremely long, it is not a routine that we have developed. It was, however, one of my personal goals for this year. 

In the past we have tried holding family home evening (FHE) on Sunday, as well as Saturday. I decided at the beginning of the year to move it to Monday and to treat it like an actual event, like scouts or a group. This has helped us to make the connection between FHE and Mondays. 

Everyone is given a turn to give a lesson. Since there are four family members we have assigned a specific weeks to each person. Our schedule looks like this:

Week one - L

Week Two - S

Week Three - J

Week Four - Mom

Week Five - Church Movie 

How have we been doing?

Pretty good. L presented a lesson/story that she first heard at church. It was a story from The Friend (an LDS magazine for children 4-11). S did an excellent family home evening lesson about telling people how much you appreciate them. It also passed off a requirement for an award she is earning for church. J's FHE did not go so well. The Monday of his turn he had a meltdown. It finally got to the point that I put the girls in their room and blocked the door. Then me and the girls went through calendar. S picked a scripture at random and we talked about it. Considering everything else going on at the moment, it was really great, and kept us calm during an anxiety provoking situation. Even J had calmed down by the time we were done.

My FHE went well also. I did it on emergency preparedness. Our 3 minute kits came out great.