What Mormons Do on Monday Nights...

Normally, what happens at Family Home Evening stays at Family Home Evening...

...but not anymore.

I thought it would be fun to give my friends of all faiths a peek into what Monday nights are like at our house by showing you what we do during Family Home Evening over the course of one year.  

For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Family Home Evening is a special time set aside each week that brings family members together and strengthens their love for each other.  It is an opportunity for parents to instruct children in matters of faith, for games to be played, treats to be eaten, and memories to be made!  

Setting aside time for the family to be together each week sends a strong message, to children especially, that family is what matters most.  In our faith, we truly believe that when it comes to family relationships, love is really spelled "T-I-M-E."

Confession:  My kids love FHE so much that they have asked us to hold it more than just once a week!  However, I used to feel badly when my kids had to tell their friends,"Sorry, we can't play, because it's Family Home Evening night."  This answer is often difficult for little ones to understand.  I'm sure they think initially, "You can't play Sunday...You can't play Monday...what's the deal?"

But then I noticed that one of our best friends started spending Monday nights together just as a family as well.  Now, during nicer weather, it's not uncommon for our family to be playing games on a blanket in our front yard, while our friend's family plays tag together in their yard.  It's a beautiful, subtle thing, but I noticed.  And it makes me feel happy and peaceful inside to see their happiness as they spend time together as a family too. 

Hopefully sharing snippets of our Monday nights together will plant in families reading this the desire to designate Monday (or another night each week) as a special Family Night to play games and spend time together in a way that is tailored to your family's interests and needs, and that it will sort of pull back the veil of what your Mormon neighbors are doing together on Monday nights when they say, "Sorry, we can't come over...it's FHE."

A new post chronicling our experiences in FHE will appear here each Tuesday of 2012.

You can also read up on our family home evenings by topic on the Family Home Evening Lessons page of this blog.

I hope that you will join us!

PS - For our first FHE of the New Year, we talked about one of our family goals, which is to finish reading The Book of Mormon together as a family.  We also colored in this reading chart from the Friend Magazine.  Then the kids begged us to go have a "dance party" in the basement.  (See the video above.)  You'll have to excuse Steve's dancing.  I swear he was doing way cooler moves before the camera was rolling.  Then we watched ourselves on video and the kids laughed their little heads off.  Then we finished off a pint of cookie dough ice cream left over from NYE and went to bed. Voila!  One FHE down...51 to go!