Happy Mother's Day Joelle, Lisa, Jenny & Karenin!

Family Home Evening Activity:

Why not get each grandchild to answer the same questions these children get asked on this little video clip?

Power of Example

When teaching inquisitive minds about how things work, it is very important to make sure that you anticipate how the children will apply the modeling you have just given. This commercial from Nationwide Insurance cleverly illustrates how one adults lesson in how the power chute at the bank works, actually backfired.

Opening Activity

With the video clip introduction, you could then go to the family home evening resource manual and teach lesson twelve on page 48, "Jesus is My Example."

Sing "Come Follow Me" (hymn no. 14)
"Teach Me to Walk in the Light" (hymn no. B-45)

Consider playing this game: "I am the light of the world"
Turn out all the lights in the house or use a blindfold. Ask one of the family members to do something difficult like write a sentence on a piece of paper or find some household items and put them in one place. The turn on the lights or remove the blindfold and show how easily it is done in the light.

Read John 8:12

Ask:

How is Jesus the Light of the World? (He is the one who lights our way).

How does He give us light? (He gave us his example and teachings).

Why is it easier to make the right decisions with the aid of Jesus' light? (His examples and teachings light the way for us. We can see the paths we should take more clearly.

Memorize John 8:12

List some of the things for which Jesus has given us His example...things that apply to our own lives.

Examples:

He was baptized.

He loved little children.

He helped the sick.

He was kind.

He did not get angry with those who offended him.

He forgave those who were cruel to him.

He showed us how to pray.

He taught us the importance of truth.

He resisted all temptation.

Have fun with this lesson and consider recording in your journal how the experience felt and how grateful you are these wonder children who are blessing your lives.

Memorize the Names of the Apostles

Online Videos by Veoh.com

For a great family home evening activity, memorize this little song and sing it as a family. If you do that, you will know the names of the 15 men whom we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators.

Space

This is a more masculine follow up to the Princess FHE

Opening Activity:
Show a picture of our Solar System and do an activity to memorize the names of the planets. You could use this mnemonic created by an 11 year old:

My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.

or try this more complex story system

Or do a different Solar System activity. For ideas, click here.

Scriptures and Principles:
Read or tell the story of Moses seeing God's creations in Moses 1 - be sure to read verse 33. Read or tell the story of a similar experience that happened to Enoch in Moses 6 and 7. Be sure to read 7:30 and discuss how many worlds God has made. You may want to talk about our potential as God's children and how he helps us in our lives.

Video:
Show video or pictures of deep space taken from the Hubble telescope. I really like this one:



This is cool too:




Activity:

• Go outside and do some star watching.
• Set a date to watch for shooting stars - here is a schedule of upcoming meteor showers. I always like to watch the Perseids.

Song:
How Great Thou Art or If You Could Hie to Kolob

Follow up:
Go visit a planetarium or watch a movie with an outer space theme. Adults - watch the series Cosmos.

For the Grown-ups:
Think about the statement in Moses 1:10 about feeling we are nothing compared to God's greatness. Then read and ponder King Benjamin's discourse, especially Mosiah 4:5-6. Notice that the 'man who receiveth salvation' is the one who as 'come to a knowledge of the goodness of God...and your own worthless and fallen state.' Then read about 'dust' (Mosiah 2:25, Hel 12:7-8). If you want to truly feel like dust, consider this:

The U.S. Bureau of Chemistry and Soils invested many a hard-earned tax dollar in calculating the chemical and mineral composition of the human body, which breaks down as follows:

# 65% Oxygen
# 18% Carbon
# 10% Hydrogen
# 3% Nitrogen
# 1.5% Calcium
# 1% Phosphorous
# 0.35% Potassium
# 0.25% Sulfur
# 0.15% Sodium
# 0.15% Chlorine
# 0.05% Magnesium
# 0.0004% Iron
# 0.00004% Iodine

Additionally, it was discovered that our bodies contain trace quantities of fluorine, silicon, manganese, zinc, copper, aluminum, and arsenic. Together, all of the above amounts to less than one dollar!

Princesses

Opening Activity:
Cut up the sheet of princess pictures (you may need to find some prince ones for boys) and put the pictures in a box (control or right click and 'save target or image as' to download the pictures). Have each participant pick one out and then go around the room and have each person describe the qualities that make their princess great. Or - for older kids - act out the princess and see if others can guess who she is (Dad's should definitely do this). Then talk about the qualities they have.

Questions:
Ask - what makes someone a princess? (has a king for a father)
Ask - who is our father? Is he a king (Mosiah 2:19)? So - are we princes and princesses? What does that mean for us?

Principles:
Every person on this earth is a child of God and a member of God's family. He organized this earth and gave us the plan of salvation so we can learn and grow and become like Him. Because he is a king, we have 'royal blood' in us. We have great potential. Knowing this should cause us to live our lives in a special manner.

Scripture:
Read, explain and discuss Romans 8:16-17

Story and Picture:
This is from Jeremy and Karenin's blog post on Princes Sylie:

I swear since we took Sylie to the princess show on Saturday she is like a new girl. She is so sweet and acts like she is a princess all the time. We havent seen any tantrums and we can actually take her out to dinner.
I got her this cute PJ's yesterday at Target, she loves them. She doesn't want me to change her out of them.
She points and herself and says "Mami princesa, and Ariel". The first thing she does when she wakes up is say she is a princess.

Question - Should knowing that we are princesses make us act differently? How?

Application:
Each day this week find a way to act more like a prince or princess. Follow up every night. You may want to get some princess stickers for good behavior.

Closing Song:
I am a Child of God

Follow up Activity:
Watch Enchanted talk about the impact of knowing we are princesses.

From Our Mission:

From my journal on March 30, 2008: I did an auxiliary session (in Suriname, translated into Dutch) in the afternoon. I had not prepared because I didn’t know about it until the last minute. I decided to give them a short message and then address questions. I noticed a plaque on the bulletin board that someone had made using cardboard and stickers with the dates of the Relief Society anniversary. It was decorated with stickers of Disney princesses. At first I thought it was a little odd but then I realized that it was actually a perfect motif for Relief Society. We are all princesses, daughters of a Heavenly King. And that should make us act differently. I told them the story of Sylie seeing the Disney Princess ice show and getting a new princess nightgown and how that made her want to act like a princess. If you think about it - we all get our 'princess clothes' when we go through the temple and they are a constant reminder of who we are. I talked about our potential and read to them from Exodus 3 and 4 about Moses’ feelings of inadequacy when he was given an assignment by the Lord. I love it when God asks him, in response to Moses’ worry about speaking, ‘who made your mouth?’ (Ex 4:11). After that we wrote questions about callings and about our lives as women in the church on the board. I had the three auxiliary presidents address the questions pertinent to them and then I took the rest. They did a wonderful job. The questions I addressed had to do with helping husbands and children live the gospel more fully. I told them the story of Herman picking up his socks in order to teach the power of noticing the positive. I told them to be the leaven in their homes, church, and neighborhoods the ‘leaveneth the whole lump’ – or lifts everyone up. I think the meeting was helpful. I had one sweet sister, newly called as a Relief Society president, come up to me in tears and thank me for the things that were said. She had been feeling inadequate and now felt she could do it - with God's help.

Nephi Builds a Ship

Here is a fun lesson for Toddlers. We explained the story of Nephi and how he build a ship. We showed them a picture of Nephi building a ship. We also showed them some pageant pictures of Jamie on the stage with the ship.

1 Ne. 18: 1-2, 4-6, 8, 13, 22
1 Ne. 17: 8-9, 17-19, 49, 51
(choose a few verses)

After we told them the story of Nephi building the ship with the Lord's help, we constructed our own ships using marshmellows and toothpicks.

The Parable of the Blackberry

When we first arrived in Trinidad, Grandma purchased a Blackberry. Grandpa tried using it from time to time, but each time he would need special step-by-step instructions on what buttons to push and on how to make it work. It was a bit frustrating to Grandma because she would find herself reteaching the same things she had already taught the month before.

Then it happened. Grandpa decided he needed his own Blackberry. Afterall, Grandma had upgraded her Mac computer at Christmas. Fair is fair, eh? So Grandpa got a Blackberry and has never looked back. He is always in touch with the e-mails that flood his inbasket each day.

So what is the reason why Grandpa can use the Blackberry so easily now and that he has never asked Grandma even one question about it?

The answer lies in the parable of the Blackberry. Grandpa "owns" the Blackberry in every sense of the word. He made it his quest to master all the little techniques needed to use it efficiently, except for the fact that every now and then it dials Justin during Zone Conference while floating in Grandpa's pocket. (True story....Justin heard the missionaries sing a couple of verses of a closing hymn last month.)

Last week, Dallin finished the Book of Mormon. What was his initial motivation? Part of it came from a Family Home Evening where he learned about "Heber J. Grant." President Grant as a little boy became a top baseball player, a great penman, a good singer ...all because his believe in this Emerson quote: "That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved."

Dallin set a goal - to read the Book of Mormon and achieved it. Grandpa set a goal - to master use of his Blackberry and did.

Often we look at top performers and think that they work harder, know more and are more highly motivated than others. But as Human Competence author "Thomas Gilbert" writes, "exemplary performers do things more easily that others do them." I believe that this is because they paid the price. They practiced. They prepared. And yes they "own" it just as Grandpa had to decide for himself that the Blackberry was something that he could do and it worked at it so now it is easy to do.

Activity:

Play a video game together as a family and teach the other family members "the tricks" to succeeding...but make sure they "do it themselves."

In the mission field, we have an effective way of teaching called the "training model."

Explain
Demonstrate
Practice
Evaluate
Re-Practice

Now try that plan with the video game and soon Mom might be winning!