The Importance of Bodies FHE

Continuing our "series" studying the Family Proclamation, we did a fun activity at FHE exploring this section of the Proclamation:

1.     "In the premortal realm, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshipped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life." 

For this activity, I quickly placed 5 different items for my family to taste in separate bowls.  I used cocoa, baking soda, granulated sugar, garlic powder, and cupcake sprinkles.

Each person was either blind-folded or just closed their eyes, and we took turns tasting the items in the bowls.

We wrote down our guesses and shared them with each other after everyone had a chance to taste what was in all of the bowls.

We then took some time to discuss the activity and how it might relate to the quote above.

I asked them to try to describe how each item tasted to someone who might have never tasted anything before.  We agreed that it would be next to impossible to make someone understand what the various tastes were like if they didn't ever have the opportunity to taste for themselves.  And this is why God mercifully lets his children come to earth and gain experiences in mortal bodies.  It's the only way to understand the world and His plan for us.  It's the only way to become like him.  God himself came to earth to gain a body, and that is why he understands completely what it means to feel pain, what it means to feel temptation.  That is why He can so completely and authentically come to our aid.

I reminded Guy of the time that he had to get a painful but minor surgery on his toe.  It was excruciating.  Surely, before the procedure, he wouldn't have had nearly the same degree of compassion for another person in pain as he has now after that experience.

In fact, we learned from his doctor that while in podiatry school, he and his fellow students were required to practice giving the numbing shot to one another (which is the most painful part) so that the doctors would know the pain felt by their patients.

We wrapped up the evening with another game that I had prepared ahead of time.  

I threw about 15 different household items in a bag--things like a pencil, scissors, a small toy, etc.

We each took turns feeling the items in the bag with our hands and writing down our guesses as to what was in the bag.  It was a fun and easy evening together talking about this part of The Family Proclamation.

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Sidewalk CHALK WALK FHE

OH, man!  Summer is finally wrapping up for us!  It has been an amazing time of family and sibling bonding, and I am so grateful for that.  We're just trying to make the most of this last day of summer, but I can feel the time slipping through my fingers and I am powerless to stop it.  So forward, we will go!

Now for a quick FHE report.

Last night, we hosted a little Sidewalk CHALK WALK in our neighborhood for Family Home Evening, and besides the fact that it was like 95 degrees out, it was totally awesome and fun.

We always attended a Sidewalk Chalk Festival "back home" in Lewisburg, so we had to keep that tradition are part of our new lives here in Cranberry/Pittsburgh!

We asked neighbors to join us in writing positive messages on the sidewalk for the children to see as they returned to school on Wednesday.  We also asked all the kids to draw and make creations of their own liking.  Then at 7pm, neighbors came out and admired everyone's drawings.  It was just a lot of fun.

I was impressed when one neighbor write Proverbs 22:6 ("Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it") on their sidewalk and included actual "footsteps" for children to walk in.  I really appreciate that so many people are religious and have faith in God here in our new town.  It builds me up.  And I love that my kids get to grow up around people like that!  People who, as President Nelson would say, "Let their faith show!"

So, one more thing of note is that after President Nelson's announcement that we need to drop the usage of LDS and other nicknames, I changed the address for this blog.  

To be clear the name of my blog has always been "We Talk of Christ, We Rejoice in Christ," however when I started my blog, that site address was not available, so I ended up with "BeingLDS.blogspot.com" as my blogspot address, however I have always called my blog by it's name "We Talk of Christ, We Rejoice in Christ."  

Funny thing.  When I went online to see if there was another domain I could possibly use, sure enough "https://www.WeTalkofChrist.com" was now available.  

So, in case you were wondering, I am now directing my site to this address.  If you click on old links it will simply redirect you to this new address without a problem.  However, if you link to me and would like to change the link to the new website, that would also be cool.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm thrilled to hear this re-emphasis on using the full, sacred, revealed name of the church.  And I fully support it.

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EASTER Photo SCAVENGER HUNT

Looking for an easy and fun way to discuss the events that tell the story of Christ's sacrifice and resurrection with your children?  Look no further.

We did this really fun Easter Photo Scavenger Hunt last night with family and friends during a special Easter Family Home Evening.  

I found the idea for this activity at Arabah Joy  Her photo scavenger hunt was so simple and easy!  However, in the end I decided to make my own, because I wanted to highlight different/more parts of the story with my kids.

You can download the hunt that I made up here: Easter Photo Scavenger Hunt or follow the link above for hers.

Here's how it works:  Depending on how many people are in your group or family, you can split up into teams however you decide.  Each team needs the printed clue sheet, access to the New Testament, and a phone or device that can take photos.  Each team then reads the scripture stories and is prompted to find and take pictures of an item mentioned in the stories.  These items are everyday household items.  Each clue also has a question related to it to help participants think more deeply about the stories and relate to their own lives.

If they can't find an item, they can color a picture of it.  I encouraged our kids to get creative with it and think outside of the box.  Also, if they wanted to represent a different part of the scripture clue, they were free to do that. (The picture below shows one group of girls doing just that.  They decided to depict what the disciples did when they were supposed to be staying up watching on behalf of Christ while he was in the Garden.)  For another clue we found that a close-up of a window pane made an excellent cross, etc.

When the teams were finished, they returned to the living room and we took turns sharing what we took photos of and why.  Each team bore testimony and taught the stories to one another.  This was where answering the questions earlier made this discussion even richer.

There was an incentive.  The first team to finish and return won a small prize (a package of mystery-flavored peeps!)

This was a really fun evening spent with friends and family talking about the peace we receive as we follow the Savior Jesus Christ.

And it ended with treats, of course!  Donuts and donut holes made to look like empty tombs.  You don't have to wait until FHE to do this!  Have fun with it!  And have a Happy Easter!

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What to do about Social Media FHE

Warning: This post will be scattered and incomplete and proably won't convey all the thoughts that I have in my head about this topic, because I really don't have time to type that all up, but as the farmer says in the movie Babe "at'll do, pig."

So, let me just cut to the chase.

We let our children know this evening that we would like them to stay off of social media until they are grown...And I guess because we've been leaning in this direction for them for such a long time it must've not been a shock for them in any way, because no one cried or had a meltdown.

I mean, really?

I can only chalk this up to the gospel principles we've taught them, to personal and honest experiences we've shared with them about our own technology use, and good old-fashioned reasoning we've done together about this.

Now, being someone who has used social media for good for quite a while now, this might seem hypocritical, but really I've thought about it and read about it and considered what to do, and lately this has just felt right for us and for my kids.

So tonight as we discussed (under Guy's tutelage) the section in For the Strength of Youth that deals with Entertainment & Media, we worked our way over to the topic of social media and time spent on phones and before I even got the words out, Scarlett declared that she was ok staying off of social media, eventhough her friends tell her "you don't have a phone? I feel bad for you!"

My kids are brave.  I've got to hand them that.  And I reminded them tonight before I broke the news to them that in so many things we ask them to be different and to stand out.  This was going to be another one of those situations.

When "smartphones" came onto the scene just over ten years ago, almost no one that I know even considered that there might be negative effects.  Now a decade later, we are only just beginning to see the effects.  And there are plenty of people who are distancing themselves from social platforms who once embraced them.  

I am reading the book (ironically I'm reading it on my phone) called "How to Break Up with Your Phone" by Catherine Price.  I already had a desire and started taking steps to lesson my phone-time, but this book really drives that desire up about ten knotches as the first half of the book she hits you with fact after fact about what social media and technology does to our brains, to our memory, to our ability to focus and on and on.

We've always taken a wait and see approach with our kids and devices/media.  We've tried to anyway, because we were never quite sure what route was best.  We've dipped our toes in with the kids and media only to pull it back again when we saw how it affected their behavior and when we saw that we weren't ready as parents and didn't have all the answers we needed to navigate this new world with children.  On the other hand, my son Guy was one of the youngest kids I've ever heard of to get into indexing, again under my care and assistance.

One of the phrases from General Conference that has stuck with me in the last few months is this from Elder Stevenson: "Let us also teach and demonstrate the righteous use of technology to the rising generation and warn against the associated hazards and destructive use of it. Viewing social media through the lens of the gospel can prevent it from becoming a spiritual eclipse in our lives." 

Just in the last few days, I finally could come to terms with how I interpret this quote.  I AM modeling righteous use of technology for my children.  I am finding ways to practice good use of technology by giving them brief, supervised access to it, instead of letting them loose on phones of their own and saying "Good luck, kid! Try not to get addicted."

As much as they might have wanted that perceived freedom, I just couldn't do that to them.  I could see what too much screentime does to their happy young minds and I couldn't let them go there.  (My favorite catchphrase for when my kids ask WHY can't they go online or WHY can't they just watch TV, etc in any given moment is "because I'm raising children, not robots, now go outside and play!" Or I'll say, "Because I want you to be a ''real boy'" a la Pinnoccio. Or my favorite sarcastic phrase that stemmed from a real incident, "TV told me to, Mommy" always gets a laugh!)

This article that I read recently really helped me bridge the gap and opened my eyes to how much added unnessary pressure my children would have to face if they were to keep up a personal social identity online in addition to having to figure out their real in-person identity at the same time.

This is pressure I did not have to endure while simultaneously going through puberty.  I was free to figure myself out outside of the public eye.  I want to give my children this same gift.

I understand that in the coming years they might change their mind on this, but as of right now I think they're relieved....the same way they seemed relieved the other week when we taught them about our standards and expectations for them when they begin dating.  The pressure was off.  Now they knew how to respond to questions from their peers.

I can be their scapegoat when their friends ask why they aren't online.  "Oh my crazy parents won't let me be on social media.  Pssh, yeah, I know, crazy, right?" 

And when they are adults, with fully-formed identities, testimonies, and convictions, they will be ready to be a force for good out there in the cyberworld on their own.  Until then, we practice and do these things together.  

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Tribe Pride FHE

 Tonight's FHE started out semi-calm and got weird real fast.

We read and listened to the section in For the Strength of Youth that talks about Family.  (Which, by the way, the narration and the words on the site are not exactly the same, so we listened to and read both.)

I asked the kids to write down or draw pictures of the principles that we learned as we listened, which they did, but apparently the example of 2 year old Val drawing on his face was too much for my older kids to handle.  They had to join in...and so did Dad.  By the end of it, despite my protests, they all had made a messy, funny memory together.

Here are some of the concepts we learned: Families are a great blessing from God.  They take a lot of effort.  Not all families are the same, but they are all important to God's plan.  Families can be some of our closest friends.  (I accidentally wrote "closet friends" which had us all in stitches too.)

The kids took turns sharing their posters with the family and hanging them on the wall for us to look at in the coming week.

Here we are being boring and listening to the lesson...before face-painting hijacked FHE!

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Friendship FHE

Some nights for FHE, I literally do not have a plan.  I usually have some doctrine I want to teach, but not always a plan.

And that is why this week's FHE started with a lipsync battle to songs about friendship...because it was what came to me in the moment.

In particular, we watched and laughed at and sang along to the following music videos that I found on the spot: TLC's "What About Your Friends", James Taylor "You've Got a Friend", "You've Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story, and by special request "He's My Friend to the Bitter End" from the musical/movie "The Unsinkable Molly Brown".  

We have a projector on our phones so projecting the videos on the wall made FHE larger than life tonight and caused things to get real crazy, real fast.  

After each video, we called out what we learned about friendship in each song...We learned that friends are loyal, friends like you even if you're not the smartest, richest, coolest, etc.  Friends don't talk about you behind your back.  Friends defend you.  Friends are there for you, etc.

Last week, we talked about Language as taught in For the Strength of Youth, so my thought was to continue to teach out of that manual using the section on Friends.

Like last week, I projected the section in FTSOY that teaches about Friends and we took turns reading what it said.

Here are some main points we focused on:

1.  Choose friends who share your values so you can encourage each other to live high standards. (This goes for friends of all faiths.)

2. To have a good friend, be a good friend.  What does it mean to be a good friend?

3.  Treat others with kindness and make a special effort to include those who are shy, feel left out, or have special needs.

4.  Don't lower your standards to fit in with or gain a friend.

We talked about the difference between an acquaintance/friend and a close friend and why we need good friends in life.  

Steve and I shared stories of friends in our lives who have had a good influence on us and why and we gave examples of what a true friend might do in different situations.  The kids also shared examples from their own lives and Scarlett gave us a report about her experience last week when she encouraged her friend not to use bad language.

We talked about how to make friends and include others and encouraged our children to work hard to make good friends.  This is especially important for us as we left all of our friends behind when we moved last year and my older kids are getting ready to move on to our very large middle school starting next year and need good friends now more than ever.

We rounded the discussion out by mentioning how our siblings are some of our very best friends and that parents and children and siblings can all become each others best friends too if we treat each other with love and respect and kindness.

With adolescence knocking at our door, many of my Mommy-friends and I find ourselves reading every book we can get our hands on to help us navigate this new rhelm of parenting.

So far, I've found For the Strength of Youth to be one of the most useful tools for helping us all in this area.  And I'm grateful for it.

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Using Good Language FHE

We're having a pretty awesome day over here...It's 70 degrees, so my kids have had a great morning outside. Here is Val having the time of his life playing in the mud in the empty lot next to our house.  That lot won't be empty much longer as it recently sold.

I thought I'd give a quick update on some things I'm doing and thinking about.

Last night for Family Home Evening, we talked about language and reviewed what For the Strength of Youth says about it.  Believe it or not, I accidentally said a swear word in front of my children yesterday. It was totally unintentional.  I like to rhyme words together when I'm being silly with them, and I accidentally rhymed out a bad word.  Whoops!  My kids thought it was hilarious and thought it also gave them license to repeat what I said to others.  

I know they hear lots of bad words at school or in media despite our best efforts to avoid it, so FHE seemed like a good time to review where we stand on all of that.

We read through FTSOY and talked about its recommendations on bad language and gossip.  Then took questions from them.  Scarlett told me, "But, Mom, it's so HARD, because almost everyone around me swears or uses crude language."  I told Scarlett that NOT saying anything to her friends would make it harder for her in the long run, because she would always feel conflicted and might feel tempted to use the language that she hears, whereas if she gently lets her friends know how she feels about the language they're using and asks them to try and do better, they might just respect her for it, they might even change.  And the earlier she sets that standard for herself and those whose company she keeps, the easier it will be moving forward.

We role-played how she might go about doing that.  I pretended to be Scarlett talking to her friends, and tried to mimic her bubbly personality.  I said, "Friend, I love you so much and I love being around you.  You're so beautiful. I only ever want to hear beautiful things come out of your mouth!"  Now, complimenting others is something Scarlett does freely and often, so this would be a pretty natural and kind/encouraging way for Scarlett to get her point across.

Guy asked, "But how would I do it?  I can't say stuff like that to my friends."  We worked on a few ways, Guy might briefly get his point across to his buddies...something like, "Hey, it's me here, Guy!  You don't have to talk like that with me," etc.

It seemed like a helpful evening together talking about things that are probably real-life issues for them as they progress into tween-hood.  I'm looking forward to hearing what becomes of it and if they find the courage to mention their language standard to their friends.  I assured them that even if they just told one friend, usually that person will spread the word so that they usually don't have to.  Scarlett said, "I'll tell Cassidy!"  I love that she could think of someone right away who would be understanding of her desire to raise the standard of language she and others use.

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Sick FHE

Oh, man, there's been sickness at our house...five kids on amoxicillin for the last week.  That's a lot of bottles of medicines and doses to keep straight...plus fever reducer and sore throat and cough medicines.  Three strep throats, 2 ear with ear infections, and a sick hubby.  Call me Nurse Jocelyn!

There have been two upsides to our illnesses: 1. no one threw up and 2. we were able to spend lots of time together at home this last week just hanging out and watching movies.  I would add a third upside to sickness and that is that we ended up buying three fish as pets, however, two of three fish have already gone to the great watery beyond. This is proof to me that we are not ready for a dog, but then again the fish weren't that healthy to begin with and fish are easy to accidentally kill.  Poor fish.  At least they died at our house and not in a tank at Walmart.  I have to think that was more pleasurable for them?  I know that my kids enjoyed them!

Here's a shot of our short-lived pets.  Aren't they cute?  The kids are eager to have another go at it, but once you've had fish floating at the top of the tank in your kitchen next to where you prepare food, you're less inclined to see fish the same ever again. Ack!

Honor was pretty thrilled when I let her pick out the fish at Walmart.  She was so surprised.  It was fun to treat her to a totally unexpected treat.  I especially enjoy doing that when my children are sick.  Ok, maybe I will let them try again...just not until Spring and better weather for transporting them.  And not until I figure out what I did wrong to kill those poor fish!

Honor and Steve did manage to get well enough to steal away for the evening to attend a Valentine's Day Ball at her preschool on Friday evening.  She was glowing!

The rest of the weekend, they basically all looked like this...sitting on the couch, watching Psych or other rented movies.

Honor was wiped out from the Valentine's Day Ball.

And thankfully, Baby Coy and I never got sick.

So, the past week was basically one long FHE and tonight for the real FHE, Honor was spiking another fever and I was out of medicine for that, so I had to send Steve to the store while I cared for and bathed the other sick children.

Sometimes, FHE has to be just taking care of one another!  Don't worry, I got taken care of too...my neighbor drove by today and had her kids run a bag of "emergency" chocolate to me!  So I'm good...Have a great week!

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Keeping Things Simple #FHE

In most seasons of life it's best to keep things simple, and right now, that's what I'm doing when it comes to planning Family Home Evening.

Since we like to write letters in our family, and because we had a nice time doing that for the first FHE of this year, I decided we'd just go ahead and plan to write letters for the first FHE of every month.  And just like that I've magically planned 1/4 of my FHEs for 2018, hah!

To simplify even further (and because my stationery stash has become very messy and miss-matched), I decided to go through my stationery and get things all ready for this evening, so that when we do sit down, most of our time will be spent actually writing letters.

I've got stamps, stickers, my address book, and a small pile of cards to write in...and I've got pens I just purchased today too, so as soon as I get dinner going, it should be a pretty easy evening for our family.

Although, I generally try not to have any activities on Monday nights, we did have two doctor's appointments scheduled this evening for yearly check-ups, but I managed to get those switched to this morning and now our evening is free for Monday-night togetherness...or just dealing with whatever craziness the kids walk in the door talking about after school!

IS there something that your family really likes to do together that you could insert into your family home evening planning on a regular basis?  I'd love to hear what it is in the comments!!  Happy Monday!

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Learning About President Nelson FHE

I've just got to say, I love FHE.  

I didn't even realize that I did until recently.  

I realized it because I noticed how much my children anticipate spending this crucial time together.  Our children haven't had to go to school for any of the Mondays in January this year (awesome, right?). That's four Mondays off in a row!  So a couple of times they've asked, so what are we doing for FHE and I'll say, well, we'll be together all day Monday, isn't that enough?  "NO!" is their reply.

Hearing their disappointed responses to the idea that we might not have a formal FHE, I thought, "Wow, THIS is the glue for our family. The absolute glue."  This is not to say that they always act like angels while we're doing it, but I'm so glad we didn't miss the chance to fortify our relationships through this inspired program. 

We've plowed through having home evening EVERY WEEK, not just when it's convenient, not just when the kids feel like it, not just when I have a fun plan in mind or when we don't have anything else going on, but every week, basically without fail.  We did it every week as an act of obedience at first and a proof of our faith and trust in our leaders, and a hope that the promises attached to holding family home evening will come through, and I believe that they have been coming through for us.  We've had to say no to some things in order to preserve Monday night for our family, but it has been worth it.

Deciding together how we will spend Sunday and how we will spend Monday night makes us feel like we have control over certain aspects of our lives.  We aren't running on anyone else's schedules.  Whatever else happens during the week those are still our times, sacred times.

So, enough rambling, tonight I knew I wanted to learn more about President Nelson, because we had discussed what the topic for FHE would be last night at family council.  However, I hadn't really prepared a lesson.  Thank goodness we have so many online resources!  What a blessing!  

I quickly found this article called "11 Things You Didn't Know About President Nelson."

Since we were starting later, we started FHE as dinner was wrapping up. I asked everyone to write down as many things as they thought they knew about President Nelson in two minutes.

I was surprised by how much they did know:

They were able to recall a few of the lessons we've learned from his General Conference talks, etc. But I also had a good laugh when my daughter asked, "Isn't he a heart virgin?"

Close...(He's a heart surgeon, of course!)

After we shared what we thought we knew about President Nelson, we read the article I mentioned above.

Before I read each point, I gave them the chance to guess what I'd say next.

As we read, we were delighted to learn these and more fun facts about our new prophet...(pictured as a child below.)

Honor, who earlier today, hid her sandwich that she didn't want to eat in the garbage, was tickled pink to learn that President Nelson used to hide food he didn't like in his pockets so he could avoid eating it! (The food he hates to eat is liver!)

Scarlett, my daughter who is always singing, will now always remember that President Nelson has perfect pitch!

Guy guessed correctly that President Nelson was a convert to the church, baptized at the age of 16.

And we all took note of how obedient President Nelson is when we learned that when President Kimball suggested during a meeting that all should take up learning Chinese, President Nelson went out and learned Mandarin, which I am sure is no small feat.

I bore my testimony to our children that I know that President Nelson is a prophet of God and the one chosen to lead His church at this time.  I promised them that I would follow this good man and I hoped that they would as well.

Then I promised if they cleared the dishes and got ready for bed they could enjoy a handful of sweet tart candy hearts.

Our family home evening lessons are usually just this simple, but I'm glad to know that every Monday night we spend together brings us together in more ways that I can count.

I hope you are also having a good cummulative experience with Monday nights.  It will pay off, I promise!

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