Week 34: Strengthening Our Families

Song: Love is Spoken Here (CS. 190)

Thought: Strong families require effort. Your family will be blessed as you do your part to strengthen it. Be cheerful, helpful, and considerate of family members. Many problems in the home come from family members speaking and acting selfishly or unkindly. Seek to be a peacemaker rather than to tease, fight, and quarrel. Show love for your family members each day. Share your testimony with your family through words and actions. Your righteous example can make a difference in strengthening your family. (For the Strength of Youth: Family)

Object Lesson: Hold up a single piece of thread and ask one family member to break the thread. Then hold up a piece of yarn or rope and ask that same family member to try to break that piece as well. Discuss the differences between the thread and the yarn/rope. Ask your family for input on what they believe the various individual threads that make up the rope could represent. (Ex: each family member, prayer, scripture study, temple worship, church attendance, FHE, working together, etc.)

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Lesson Activity: Give sections of Sister Mary N. Cook’s talk “Strengthen Home and Family” to your family, and invite them to look for ways they can help strengthen your home now. Invite them to set some goals based on what they read. (Come, Follow Me) Make sure that their goals are written down and then placed somewhere that they can see them each day as a reminder.

This Week's Challenge: Remind your family of the goals set tonight and encourage them to work hard on keeping those goals. Follow up over the next few weeks to see how following their plans has made a difference.

Week 33: Family History

Song: The Hearts of the Children (CS. 92)

Thought: President Howard W. Hunter taught: “We must accomplish the priesthood temple ordinance work necessary for our own exaltation; then we must do the necessary work for those who did not have the opportunity to accept the gospel in life. Doing work for others is accomplished in two steps: first, by family history research to ascertain our progenitors; and second, by performing the temple ordinances to give them the same opportunities afforded to the living. (The Joy of Redeeming the Dead)

Object Lesson: Start by your family, "Now who REALLY loves chocolate?  I'm not talking about just liking chocolate, who L-O-V-E-S chocolate?"  Have some chocolate sitting on the edge of the table.  Then tell the person that volunteered that the chocolate is theirs, the only thing is....they can't use any of their body to get to the chocolate.  Otherwise, it's theirs!  The person is left not knowing how to get the chocolate.

After a moment, ask your family, "Who would like to feed so-and-so this chocolate in exchange for him/her doing your chores tomorrow?"  Call on someone to come and put the chocolate in the first volunteers mouth.  Thank both volunteers and let them be seated.

Then discuss the above activity a bit further.  Help them realize that the first volunteer (our ancestors) REALLY, REALLY, REALLY want their work done, but they can't.  WHY?  They no longer have a body (which is why they can't use any part of their body to touch the chocolate).  However, worthy members of the church (2nd volunteer) help by attending the temple and doing the work for them.  In exchange for this, the Lord blesses us for our service (clean house, whatever blessings He sees fit....).  (She Really Wants the Chocolate!)

Video: The Spirit of Elijah

Lesson Activity: Ahead of time download the software for indexing on your family computer. Spend some time before FHE familiarizing yourself with it and be ready to teach your family how to use it. During FHE set a timer and see how many names your family can index. This activity can be extended throughout the week if you would like to set up a "competition" among family to see who can index the most names. If you choose to do this make sure you set up some rules and have a time schedule for the computer so that everyone gets a chance to participate who wants to!

Young children may not find this activity of any interest so you may consider the following: Grandma's Trunk or Family History ABC's.

This Week's Challenge: Encourage your family to check out the LDS website: Youth and Family History. Challenge your family members to begin researching your family history and become familiar with all the resources that the LDS church has to offer.

The Spirit of Elijah

Temple marriage is a wonderful blessing we have the opportunity to experience in this life. But, for those of our family who have passed away without receiving that blessing there is a way provided!

Week 32: Temple Marriage

Song: The Family is of God (The Friend, Oct 2008)

Thought: In “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” the First Presidency and Council of the Twelve Apostles proclaim “that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.”  This keynote sentence of the proclamation teaches us much about the doctrinal significance of marriage and emphasizes the primacy of marriage and family in the Father’s plan. Righteous marriage is a commandment and an essential step in the process of creating a loving family relationship that can be perpetuated beyond the grave. (Elder Bednar)

Object Lesson: Give each family member a small triangle with God written on one point, Husband on another, Wife on the third, and the words Sacred Triangle across the front. Have each one write on the back: “I will prepare now to be worthy of participating in the sacred triangle of eternal marriage.”
Refer to the sacred triangle. Erase the lines leading from husband and wife to God, leaving a straight horizontal line. Explain that we must do all we can to prevent a situation in which God is not part of our marriage/future marriage. (YW Manual 3)

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Lesson Activity: Ahead of time prepare or purchase pre-made rice crispy treats. Have your family work together to build a temple out of the treats. Once your temple is built then you can choose to eat it our display it! (Idea from here)
As a family, read D&C 131:1–4 and “The New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage” in True to the Faith (page 98), looking for answers to the question “Why is temple marriage important?” If necessary, help your family define any unfamiliar words or phrases. Ask them to list some things that might keep people from marrying in the temple. What can they do now to make sure they marry in the temple? (Come, Follow Me)

This Week's Challenge: Encourage your family members to display their "sacred triangles" in their rooms to remind them of the goals they have set to prepare for a temple marriage. Challenge them to study the scriptures and words of the prophets on the subject and be prepared to share with others why marriage is so important, especially a temple marriage.

Week 31: The Importance of Families

Song: Families Can Be Together Forever (CS. 188)

Thought: The joining together of a man and a woman to be legally and lawfully wed not only is preparation for future generations to inherit the earth, but it also brings the greatest joy and satisfaction that can be found in this mortal experience. This is especially true when the powers of the priesthood proclaim a marriage to be for time and for all eternity. Children born to such marriages have a security that is found nowhere else. (Becoming Goodly Parents by Elder L. Tom Perry)

Object Lesson: Show your family an orange (whole). Ask them how this orange is similar to a family. After they share their thoughts you could: compare the peel of the orange to the sealing power of the priesthood that binds us together as families. Peel the orange and show how the orange is made up of different sections that are stuck together. Explain that each of the individual sections is unique alone, but when combined as a whole it makes a complete orange. Discuss how our families are more richly blessed by being unified and most importantly, by being sealed for eternity.

Video: Families Can Be Together Forever

Lesson Activity: Draw a circle on a large piece of paper. Invite a family member to draw a family inside the circle. Around the circle, write premortal life, mortal life, and postmortal life. Ask a family member to read the third paragraph of “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” and look for ways the family fits into each of these parts of the plan of salvation. Invite your family to share their feelings families and why they want to be united with them after this life.

This Week's Challenge: Invite each of the members of your family to prayerfully study "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" this week. Challenge them to look for things that specifically apply to them at this time in their lives.

Families Can Be Together Forever

President Eyring reminds us of the importance of families and what blessings we can receive from being part of a family.