FHE

I love Sundays. We go to church, my family comes over for dinner, and we have Family Home Evening. Family Home Evening (FHE) is a time we sing a few songs together, work on the articles of faith, and have a short and spiritually based lesson. FHE is very fun; although, most of the time I don’t think anyone retains an ounce of what I was talking about, but that’s ok! As long as they remember the time with happy memories, I will consider it a success.

We were fortunate enough to have some members of the general board (from our church) of Primary, Relief Society and Young Women visiting our area. My mom sister and I went to a meeting where they spoke. The first speaker talked about being a daughter of God, and what a special testimony that is to each of us. We know who we are, why we’re here, and where we’re going. I feel so thankful to know the answers to those questions. It gives my life direction, hope and stability. I felt impressed that we needed to have a FHE lesson on being a daughter of God. I know that each one of my daughters felt the Spirit during that lesson.

We sang “I Am A Child of God”, then I showed them some of their baby pictures. I had them try and guess who was who. It’s fun because I have the twins, and some of their baby pictures are quite tricky to decipher. I talked a little about the events surrounding their birth, what my feelings were when I saw them and held them for the first time. My girls never tire of hearing their birth stories. They love all the details…and of course I love to tell them! I asked them who “God” was that we sang about in the song…what was another name for Him. Heavenly Father. Then we talked about whether or not Heavenly Father cared about them learning and growing, and why He would care. We talked about their Dad, and what personally traits he had…”he is funny” was the number one answer. We talked about how Heavenly Father had some of the same personality traits their dad did (except He is perfect). We looked at a picture of our family, and discussed just as they are an important member of the Roylance family; they are just as important in God’s family. I asked them, “What do we call boy children?” Sons. “What do we call girl children?” Daughters. Then I said, “YOU are a daughter of God!” Then we talked about what a special blessing it is to know that. Each of my girls had tears in their eyes when we were talking about these things (I wasn’t even crying…yet, so I knew they were feeling this naturally on their own). I told them about an experience I had recently regarding Raychel. As I’ve written, we’ve been working through some (what I feel to be) critical health issues. It’s caused me to pray/beg/plead/ask Heavenly Father to please help her, but especially to help me know what to do to make it better. I had a distinct impression…just a thought in my mind while I was doing mundane things around the house. It said, “Alison, she’s my daughter and I love her too.” That was just what I needed to know! Of course, Raychel is His daughter. Of course, He loves her with a love more powerful, pure and perfect than I can understand. I also realized that I am His daughter too, and He understands my worries/concerns/fears/frustrations. I bore testimony that Heavenly Father loves them uniquely and individually. He knows their names, and He calls them daughter (just as He did Joseph Smith and Moses). When it was over, Raychel said with a teary face, “Good lesson, Mom.”

I just share this because as I mentioned earlier, this has NEVER happened. We have had FHE since Raychel was about 18 months old. The highlight of their FHE experience is singing “The Monkey Song” (not memorable, spiritual building exercises).

”3 little monkeys swinging in a tree. Teasing Mr. Alligator, ‘Can’t catch me! You can’t catch me!’ Along comes Mr. Alligator quiet as can be, and SNAP that monkey right outta that tree!”

We have monkey finger puppets, and Grant is always the best sport being the alligator. I think that’s the only thing they’ll remember about family home evening! Most lessons consist of me talking and no one listening. Hahaha! I just wanted to document that evening, so it’ll inspire me to keep pushing along when I begin to wonder if anyone even cares.

On a funny note…a few weeks ago, I made the girls clean out some of their stuffed animals. They LOVE stuffed animals, but they would take over our house if we didn’t weed a few out every now and then. I explained that we’ll donate them to Goodwill for children who aren’t lucky enough to have toys. I said they could each keep 5. Leah was sifting through the bin, and started sobbing. I knew this challenge would be the most difficult for her. I said, “What’s wrong, Leah? Why are you crying?” She opened her mouth and in bellowing, sob voice she said, “I’m just feeling the Spirit. WAHHHH!” Oh, I was trying SO hard to not crack up! She may have been “feeling the Spirit”, but I think it was just a cover for her sorrow at having to part with her precious stuffed animals.