by: Susan Muir
Gilbert, AZ

Our theme was on Improving Family Home Evening. We asked one sister to talk about FHE for families with young children, a sister whose children are out of the house to talk about home evenings for older children and an older sister to talk about having home evenings when you are older. Then we had a sister talk about using music in FHE.

The first sister talked about using prepared material that can be ordered and prepared or FHEs that are prepared through organizing a group of sisters to each prepare several copies of the same lesson and sharing them with each other. She also gave several websites for ideas for home evenings. This was her handout.

Family Home Evening Ideas from the Internet

www.deseretbook.com has a complete FHE lesson that you can download. It can be found under the “Mormon Life” section of the website and then under “family home evening.” Archived lessons can be found there as well.

http://deseretbook.com/mormon-
There are kits you can purchase from Hatch Patch Creations. They have
the outline, lesson, activity, pictures, song, refreshment recipe to go with lesson, etc. They are $5.00 each, but if you order in larger quantities at the same time, they end up being $3 a piece. The company is family owned and operated out of Evanston, WY. You may
contact them at 303-745-9707.

http://www.hatchpatchcreations.com/

www.lds.org , go to the Home and Family link

www.mormonshare.com/fhe/ Family home evening clipart, games, planning tools, FHE in a jar

www.homeandholidays.com/home-familyhomeevening.html Lessons on some earlier conference talks, FHE ideas for families with young children or older children, ideas for couples and singles, activities, games, and links to lessons at other sites.

www.theideadoor.com/FHE.html Links to lessons based on family proclamation, lessons on being prepared, lessons on President Hinkley’s 6 Be’s and many more

http://lds.about.com/library/bl/fhe/blfheactivities.htm

http://lds.about.com/od/familynight/

http://lds.about.com/od/familyhomeeveninggames/ Links to game ideas

http://www.ohanasoftware.com/?sec=ldswc&page=fhe Lessons on family history

http://www.fastq.com/%7Ejbpratt/lds/resources/index.html

http://lds.about.com/od/familyhomeeveninggames/

http://www.bellaonline.com/subjects/2013.asp Links to family home evenings for a year, flannel board stories, Strength of the Youth lessons, FHE in a can and many other lessons.

http://higherthoughts.acucore.com/family.html

The second sister gave a list of lesson ideas for older children. I ended up without the handout, but she mentioned lessons on etiquette, missionary preparation, car maintenance. She said that they memorized all the verses of many of the hymns even some of the lesser used ones.

The third sister told about organizing a FHE for the older people in the ward. They just hold it once a month so that those involved can be involved with their own grown children’s families the other months.

The fourth sister talked about the importance of music in bringing the spirit in the home for FHE. She encouraged us to play music games as part of FHE. For example, she through out a word that you might find in a hymn and you were to sing a line from a hymn that had that word in it. She encouraged us to teach our children the songs they need to know for the primary program in the fall. She also talked about Gladys Knight and the choir group that she has formed and how she encourages us a LDS people to recognize that our church is a worldwide church and to become familiar with music from other cultures. She played a song that Gladys Knight wrote and sang that is on the CD that is out in the Deseret Bookstore. It was the last song and was her testimony of the Savior. It was very moving.

We set up they cultural hall with lower lights, moved the couches, chairs, tables and plants from the foyers into the hall. Brought the RS room cushioned chairs in and set them up in a half circle facing the end of the hall to give a more comfortable home feeling. One of my board members called about 8 sisters to set up displays that showed something that they did or do as a family for FHE. We put the long table in the back with FHE treats brought by the sisters and then put the tables ( the small tables that are in each classroom) with the FHE displays on either side of the food table, so that the sisters could look at them and chat while they were eating.

We also set a table up to display the midweek activity that will be next week. At the midweek, we are making family home evening assignment boards- a choice of two, or they can sign up for a FHE lesson that they can color and cut out while the other sisters are making their boards.

We got good feedback on everything. The only problem seemed to be that we got a lot of no-bake cookies on the treat table, so there wasn’t a lot of variety.