Tuesday, January 12, 2016

family home evening success story

(Note the title is singular, I'm not anticipating this again any time soon.)

After yet another disheartening night of Babs being crazy while we tried to read scriptures as a family, and this sending her parent off the rails, when all was quiet my husband and I brainstormed how we could change things. Although we made no decisions, I mentioned I thought we should use a paper Book of Mormon (as opposed to the digital ipad version) so we could point to the words and Babs could follow along.

On Monday, we finally sat down for FHE at 7, which is yes, bedtime. So I wasn't expecting great things. But we got them.

First my husband led a discussion about how we keep the Sabbath Day holy. My favorite moment was when he reminded them that we don't go to stores or restaurants on Sunday. He asked them why not. Babs was sure she had the answer.

(I paraphrase, but not much.) It's to show Heavenly Father that we are thankful for what we have. We show him we don't need more food and we don't need more things, but that we have enough so we don't go get any more.

Wow. We both told her what a great answer that was.

Second, after the lesson we read scriptures. We pulled out a paper Book of Mormon, and sat Babs on her daddy's lap. She read most of her portion by herself. She even read the word "vineyard." (Yes, we're in Jacob 5. And will be forever.) And then she read for part of my turn.

Finally, as she was getting ready for bed, I had her kneel down to pray. She started on her own, giving thanks that she could finally read the Book of Mormon by herself.