A Lovely Thought

You never really know who or what your baby is laughing at ♥♥♥

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A Lovely Thought

Peanut Butter Smudges and All

Marjorie Pay Hinckley:

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived." 

FHE Spot - Welcome Home

This lesson will teach the importance of family and the need to forgive and support each other so that there will be no empty chairs in our heavenly home. Taken from here.

Opening Song: Families Can Be Together Forever
Opening Prayer By:
Lesson By:

LESSON - Welcome Home

“I know of no more beautiful story in all literature than that found in the fifteenth chapter of Luke. It is the story of a repentant son and a forgiving father...There is no peace in reflecting on the pain of old wounds. There is peace only in repentance and forgiveness."

Gordon B. Hinckley, Tambuli, Nov. 1991 © 2006

Video Clip of the Prodigal Son


For younger children, it may be helpful to summarize the following ideas:

The Savior’s love and compassion eternally surround every soul who walks the earth
“Every man, woman, or youth who returns home after a prodigal journey or an inactive period will find the Savior waiting with open arms. His atoning act will satisfy justice and extend mercy to all who will “come unto him.” (See D&C 18:11.)...All who are active have someone close who may he inactive, indifferent, or clothed in transgression’s soiled robes. They need the sweet, abiding love of a compassionate parent or loving brother or sister. Jesus will bless every member of the Church who will go out and bring someone back.” Vaughn J. Featherstone, Ensign, Nov. 1982

The family plays an important role in Heavenly Father’s plan
Before we came to earth we lived with our Heavenly Father. We accepted His plan to come to earth, gain a physical body and choose between right and wrong. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Savior. He has also given us families to love and help us along the way.

Work towards Eternal Life as a family
Eternal life means to become like Heavenly Father and live happily with our families forever. An eternal family doesn’t just happen because of the sealing covenants we make in the temple. How we behave in this life will decide if we will be together as an eternal family. To receive the blessings of the temple sealing we have to keep the commandments and behave in a way that our families will want to live with us forever. Heavenly Father and Jesus love every one and want every family to be sealed in the temple and return to live with them forever.

People are often kinder to strangers than to their family members that they love. Why is this and what can we do differently?
The Savior taught us, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” John 13:34. The Savior loves us even when we are not doing everything we should. We should follow His example by showing love to our own family members in this same way.

ACTIVITY: Younger children will need help from an older sibling or parent.
(Click here for 'No Empty Chairs' Game and artwork.)

Have each family member pick a “to-do” card and place it in the appropriate column (to make it easier we have numbered the cards by row.) Find the correct column and place the cards in the order that they are numbered.

Discuss how each “to-do” will help you be a “Family 4 Eternity.” Also discuss which areas your family needs to improve on.

Read together the theme:“As part of this family and Heavenly Father’s family we will do our part to help every family member so that we will have 'No Empty Chairs in Our Heavenly Home.'”
What you need: A copy of the “4 Family X 4 Eternity” game board and game cards (art work is included with this lesson) and scissors.
Optional: Poster board or cardboard, and glue.

Preparation:
1. Print out game cards and game board.
Optional: Glue game cards and game board to poster board for more durability. ..
2. Cut out the 16 “to-do” game cards and mix up.

Optional:
Frame a 5 X 7 copy of the picture quote “No Empty Chairs” (click here for artwork) for each child, to help them remember their goal of being an eternal family.

TREAT: Orange Biscuits

We Will All Have Our Fridays

Joseph B. Wirthlin:
“Each of us will have our own Fridays—those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays.

“But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death—Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come.

“No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, in this life or the next, Sunday will come.”
("Dark Friday, Bright Sunday," New Era, Mar. 2008, 4)

Really Living

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails.

I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp.

I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbors children.

I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden.

I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder.

I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived."

Marjorie Pay Hinckley

So Concerned

"We are becoming so concerned about having perfect figures, or straight A’s, or professional status . . . that we are being torn from our true selves. We often worry so much about pleasing and performing for others that we lose our own uniqueness, that full and relaxed acceptance of ourselves as a person of worth and individuality".

[Patricia T. Holland, “The Soul’s Center” (13 January 1987), BYU 1986–87 Devotional and Fireside Speeches]

"Why?"

James E. Faust:
"Many believe that the transcendent answers to life’s questions lie in the test tube, in the laboratories, in the equations, and in the telescopes. This theocracy of science leaves out the ultimate answer to the overarching question, “Why?” Knowing cause and effect is fascinating but does not explain why we are here, where we came from, and where we are going."
—Ensign, May 2000-

A Family Experience

"Exaltation is an eternal family experience, and it is our mortal family experiences that are best suited to prepare us for it."

—Dallin H. Oaks, Ensign, Nov. 2000-

Seeing Eternity

I really liked this part of a book I recently read called “House of Glory” by S. Michael Wilcox:

“We should also realize the words, the covenants, the clothing, and the architecture all present opportunities for wonderful insight. I once learned a great lesson on marriage while witnessing the sealing of a relative. After the ceremony, I stood with my wife looking into the mirrors that reflect a strait and narrow path into eternity. As usual, I was moving this was and that way, trying to see a little farther, but my own reflection was in the way, and I could not see as far as I waned. I remember consciously thinking: “I wish I could take myself out of the mirror. I could see eternity better, but I keep getting in the way”.

As I pondered this, the Spirit bore a strong witness to its truth. Concentrating too much on ourselves obscures our view of eternal things. I thought of all the couples I had counselled while serving as bishop and realized that in every case of marital conflict, one or both partners had focused so much on themselves that they could no longer see eternity. I wanted to bring each couple in my ward to the sealing room, stand them in front of the mirrors and say: “Can you see what we sometimes do? Can you understand the problem and also perceive the solution? The mirrors teach us a powerful truth that can strengthen, enhance, or save our marriages”.
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Psalms 27:4:
“One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.”

Have a lovely day.

An Eternal Family Experience

Exaltation is an eternal family experience, and it is our mortal family experiences that are best suited to prepare us for it."

—Dallin H. Oaks, Ensign, Nov. 2000

Alice in Wonderland

In Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice finds herself coming to a crossroads with two paths before her, each stretching onward but in opposite directions. She is confronted by the Cheshire Cat, of whom Alice asks, “Which path shall I take?”

The cat answers, “That depends where you want to go. If you do not know where you want to go, it doesn’t really matter which path you take.”

Unlike Alice, each of us knows where he or she wants to go. It does matter which way we go, for the path we follow in this life surely leads to the path we shall follow in the next.

“In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”

Proverbs 3:6

The Divinity Within Ourselves

"There is a divinity within ourselves that is immortal and never dies. Thousands and thousands of years hence we will be ourselves, and nobody else, so far as our individuality is concerned, that never dies from all eternity to all eternity."

—Lorenzo Snow-

What a Day!

Neal A. Maxwell:

“One's life is brevity compared to eternity- like being dropped off by a parent for a day at school. But what a day!”

(Ensign, Nov.1985)

“This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it"

(Psalms 118:24)

Seeing as how we do have a choice about how we feel about our day, we may aswell choose gladness!

Eternal Life

"What we want is eternal life... We don't just want it if that is what works out, nor do we want something approaching eternal life. We want eternal life, whatever its cost in effort, pain, and sacrifice."

(Henry B. Eyring, To Draw Closer to God)

Successful Marriages

B y Spencer W Kimball: Successful Marriages Are Built on Selflessness

"Total unselfishness is sure to accomplish another factor in successful marriage. If one is forever seeking the interests, comforts, and happiness of the other, the love found in courtship and cemented in marriage will grow into mighty proportions. Many couples permit their marriages to become stale and their love to grow cold like old bread or worn-out jokes or cold gravy. Certainly the foods most vital for love are consideration, kindness, thoughtfulness, concern, expressions of affection, embraces of appreciation, admiration, pride, companionship,confidence, faith, partnership, equality, and interdependence."

(President Spencer W. Kimball, "Oneness in Marriage,"Ensign, Mar. 1977, 5)

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I just feel so grateful to be a member of the Church and to have the Gospel of Jesus Christ laid before me. When I think about all those qualities, most are ones which I hope to have and definitely all are ones I need to increase in, but I know that through the Saviour and His love, that I can become the daughter of God He knows I can be, and that His grace will be sufficient for me. It’s so wonderful that we can change and develop everyday don’t you think? Everyday is a brand new day:)

I hope you have such a lovely day today.

Barefoot to the Celestial Kingdom

"I would rather walk barefoot all the way to the Celestial Kingdom than to let the things of this world keep me out of that kingdom."

—N. Eldon Tanner-