Thursday - September 17, 2009

Preach My Gospel - pg. 3

"On earth. family associations can be the source of some of our greatest joy. Satan is attacking the family on many fronts, and too many families are being destroyed by his efforts."

I asked the kids....

Q - When we fight with each other do you think that is Satan's way of

making our home not a happy place?

"The message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ makes it possible for families to be united now and in eternity. By living the principles of the gospel, families can experience peace, joy, and a sense of belonging and identity in this life."

Q - What commandments has Heavenly Father given us that will help our family be

happy and strong?

Charlie answered this first...then we had to redirect.

Don't kill each other, don't punch each other.

We finally got some good answers....

Read the scriptures, say family prayer, pay our tithing, be kind, and serve

others.

Wednesday September 16, 2009

This morning we read the first paragraph on pg. 3 of Preach My Gospel.

It has this quote from The Family: A Proclamation to the World.

"The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally."

I asked the kids...

What do we do in temples? Charlie answered - Get married.
What is the difference between getting married in the temple and getting married outside of the temple? - Can you believe they didn't know?
We prompted a little bit by saying....in the temple you are married for e....
Then Charlie answered : for time and all eternity.
David explained that when we get married outside of the temple the preacher says till death do you part, and that means that you are only married while you are on this earth

We then explained that because Joseph restored the church (we had to go into an explanation of what the restoration is) we have temples and we can be married forever.

Heavenly Father wants us to be families forever and to return to live with Him. That is one of the reasons he gave us temples and helped Joseph Smith return the gospel to the earth.
I can't believe how much explanation goes into each little concept in this book. I can see that through studying it, the kids will completely understand the gospel by the time we're through it. I think a worthy goal would be to finish it by the time Charlie goes on his mission. We have about 11 years and it just may take that long!!!

Lehi's Dream - FHE - September 14,2009

Monday we had the most wonderful FHE. We read Lehi's dream in 1 Nephi 8 and had the kids draw the specific things that they could find in the dream.
This is Katie's (age 6)...she's the artist in the family. I really like her mist of darkness. As we talked more it kept getting darker and darker.
Here is Sydney's tree of life (age 4). She is also becoming quite the artist.

This was Charlie's rendition...he decided there needed to be a ladder to get the fruit off the tree.

The kids actually loved this activity. We also read bits and pieces of 1 Nephi 11 and 12 to get the symbolism of the dream. They understood pretty well the meaning behind everything. They even came up with the mist of darkness being Satan.

I cannot believe how our family scripture study has been transformed since I started the Preach My Gospel class.

September 10, 2009

Since I've been in a class about how to use Preach My Gospel in our personal, family, and companion study I have gotten really excited about what's in this book. The kids started school yesterday so we started our morning routine and so far it's been going really well. As a way of keeping track of what we are studying I thought I'd start adding to this blog everyday. So here's what we did today:

We started yesterday on pg. 1 and talked about what eternal life is and why the gospel brings us comfort and peace... all of this came from the first paragraph on pg. 1 of Preach My Gospel. We read the scripture D&C 59:23.

REVIEW FROM YESTERDAY:
This morning I started by asking what eternal life means. Charlie and Katie understood that it means living again with Heavenly Father. We talked about how eternal life means achieving the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom and not only living with HF for eternity but also becoming a King and a Queen. I mentioned that is why it is so important that we study and learn all we can on earth so we will be the most prepared for what we will do in the eternities.

We read: (from the second paragraph on pg. 1)
"The gospel of Jesus Christ as restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith will bless their families, meet their spiritual needs, and help them fulfill their deepest desires. Although they may not know why, they need relief from feelings of guilt that come from mistakes and sins. They need to experience the joy of redemption by receiving forvieness of their sins and enjoying the gift of the Holy Ghost."

Q: What do we know about that we can do when we have made a mistake? (Repent)

How do we know about repentance? (from the scriptures, church leaders, the gospel)

When you have done something wrong or made a mistake and you feel bad about it, what can you do to feel better? (repent)

What if you didn't know about the gospel and you made mistakes, then you felt bad, but you didn't know about repentance and that you can actually make things better?

This is why we want people to know about the gospel, we want people to know that their is help. That the Savior paid the price for everyone and if understand that and know the steps to repentance we can feel so much better.

We then talked about the steps to repentance...

Step 1 : Realize that you have made a bad choice.

Step 2 : Try to make it right (with the person that you have done it to).

If you steal something you need to take it back and tell someone what you have

done. If you hurt somebody's feelings you need to tell them you are sorry.

Step 3 : Pray and ask HF for forgiveness.

During our family prayer I asked Charlie to ask HF to help us think about repentance today and try to repent for something that we have recently done wrong.

This seems long...but really only took about 7-8 minutes.