The Chocolate Law

As I've mentioned, our house is under some pretty major stress with multiple construction and repair projects going on simultaneously.

I'm learning just why God's house is a house of order...and ours should be too.  It's hard when things are not in order.  Among other things, I'm not able to spend as much time teaching and preparing special lessons for my family, because we are instead in a season of work right now, very temporal work.  And work has its own opportunities to teach and learn.

Anyway, I have wanted to do a mission map for our family for a while now, so last week, as I was cleaning up some atlases that Honor had been playing with, I decided to email our family and ask them to send a letter to our children talking about the missions they have served (both formal and informal)...where and when they served, what they did to prepare, and any lessons learned.

Last night, for FHE, we read the first letter, which came from my sister-in-law Renae.
We didn't tell the children who sent the letter at first.  We made it a mystery for them to solve.

Renae shared how she prepared in specific ways and some really memorable stories of faith.

She said that in Brazil, where she served, instead of knocking on doors, she would stand outside of the gate and clap loudly.  (The children enjoyed learning how to clap loudly!)

One fun detail that she shared was "Lei o Chokito" which was a rule she and her companions had for each other.  Whenever they were caught not using Portuguese or talking about home (when it was not P-day or they were not asked to do so by a Brazilian) then you had to buy your companion a candy bar called "Chokito"!  It's literally the Chokito Law!

I had hidden a Hershey's candy bar (which I had on hand) in the room earlier.  So the children had to find it first.  Then we played our own version of The Chocolate Law.  We sat in a circle and asked each other questions.  If anyone responded by using the words I or Me (or mentioned anyone's name) then we all called out "Chokito!!" and everyone ELSE in the circle got a piece of the candy bar.

The kids really enjoyed learning about Aunt Renae's missionary experience, marking where she served on our map, and playing the Chokito Law game.

I have to laugh, because I couldn't find the map that I had originally planned to use, and the one we ended up using has these words across the top, "We find out where conditions are the worst--the places where other are not going--and that's where we want to be."

I don't know whose slogan that is, but it can sure be said of the missionaries who go out across the world to places both desirable and suffering to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.