A last FHE for awhile

Last Sunday we got together with my parents at my sister's house. When you are a couple missionary I guess you can pretty much do what you'd like, within reason. They have been able to come and go from the MTC.

So we decided it would be nice to get together one last time for a family home evening where they could tell us how it's been so far.

They've been most impressed with the young missionaries and have made a point to sit with them during meal times instead of with the other couple missionaries.

And today they are who-knows-where. I can't believe they are actually gone. From Los Angeles they were flying to Fiji, a 12 hour overnight flight and then a two hour flight to the mission home in Tarawa, the capital of this group of islands.

Heck, there are islands everywhere. Christmas Island is their final destination in a week or so. When they finally arrive, they will be 2000 miles from the mission home but only 1300 from Hawaii. They are so remote that planes only fly in and out on certain days at certain times and they are pretty much located right on the equator. Even though they are located in the same time zone as Hawaii, the international date line makes a fancy jog making them an entire day ahead of Hawaii.

Can I just say, they are in for the adventure of a lifetime.

FHE - 1st Nephi, Chapter 1

Ashlyn was in charge of the lesson this past week and I got this idea that would put our Eggspert buzzer game to use.

Ash and I sat down Sunday night and read through chapter 1 of First Nephi and came up with about 20 questions.

TANGENT: I've been really trying to STUDY my scriptures lately and have found that questions are invaluable. It gets you thinking and pondering. I haven't gotten very far, however, but I've learned more about Zedekiah, king of Judah at the time of Lehi, than I've ever known before. END OF TANGENT.

Then for FHE everyone was given about 10 minutes to read through chapter 1 and study it as much as they could in that time before Ash quizzed them with her questions. The winner got some stale chocolate I had in my closet. Oh yum!

She asked a lot of WHO and WHAT questions, but I think one of the most important questions we can ask when studying is WHY.

I mean WHY would the Jews care so much about the content of Lehi's prophesies that they would want to kill him? If we see some outlandish story in the National Enquirer, we might roll our eyes, call them looney, and just dismiss it. We certainly don't have any inclinations to go out and harm whomever wrote the story. It makes me think that the Jews must have believed somewhat in Lehi's words, at least enough to want to get rid of him, to shut him up.

I also like what Nephi says at the every end of the chapter. I kind of see it as his purpose for writing, for keeping this record that we have today. It is the thesis statement for the Book of Mormon.

"I Nephi will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance."

The Lord is going to be with those who are faithful. And throughout this book we see that again and again. When we are faithful, the Lord is there to bless us, strengthen us, help fight our battles. And when we are not faithful and cease to remember him, we have no promise. That is what this book is about and Nephi wants us to know that right from the start.

QUESTIONS WE CAME UP WITH

What is the name of the first book in the Book of Mormon called? FIRST NEPHI

Who taught Nephi? HIS FATHER, LEHI

What does the word commencement mean? BEGINNING

What was the language Nephi wrote his record in? LANGUAGE OF THE EGYPTIANS

Who was the king of Judah? ZEDEKIAH

How many prophets were there during the time of Lehi? MANY

What were the prophets prophesying about? THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM

What came to Lehi as he was praying? PILLAR OF FIRE

After praying, Lehi went home and did what? CAST HIMSELF UPON THE BED

What were three of the five things Lehi saw in his vision? GOD, ANGELS, the ONE, 12 OTHERS, a BOOK

What was given to Lehi in his vision? A BOOK

Lehi describes Jesus’s countenance as being brighter than what? THE SUN AT NOON DAY

Who wrote chapter 1 of 1^st Nephi? LEHI

Who abridged chapter 1 of 1^st Nephi? NEPHI

The people are going to be forced to leave Jerusalem and go where? BABYLON

Did Nephi record everything his father saw and heard and prophesied? NO

What does the word abridgment mean? TO SHORTEN OR CONDENSE

What did the Jews want to do to Lehi after he testified to them? KILL HIM

What two things were in the book that Lehi prophesied to the people about? THE COMING OF THE MESSIAH and THE REDEMPTION OF THE WORLD

Why did the Jews mock Lehi? BECAUSE HE TESTIFIED OF THEIR WICKEDNESS

Nephi wants to show us through his writing that the  _______________     ________________ of the Lord are over all those whom the Lord hath chosen because of their faith. TENDER MERCIES

Resurrection and Regifting

This little boy loves trains. Getting caught in the electrical cord? Not so much.

You gotta love that we live right by a real train track with real trains that go by about 10 times a day. So yesterday I decided Alex needed to do something more with his time other than computer games, and I resurrected the old train sets. The only problem was I couldn't remember how to put together our motorized Thomas the Train track. We had combined two sets so I had no idea how many pieces it really needed or where they went.

This necessitated that our family (aka our children since they have the smarts)  figure the darn thing out for our family home evening activity.
And once they did we all concurred that we could sit there for hours watching Thomas and his friends haul coal around that little track.

Alex was so elated as he watched those trains do their business that I decided to regift it for Christmas. Ashlyn was all on board with that idea since she has Alex's name. She'll do the boxing and wrapping and I'll have one less gift to wrap myself.

I love when our old toys become new again.

FHE lately

Be assured we still do hold our weekly family home evening. We've just been lazy about pictures.

Have I mentioned how crazy May can be? We did fit in a trip to the West Valley Fitness Center to swim (still trying to get use out of our passes before they expire) and then to 7-11 for Slurpees.

One week Kiersten had us play hide-n-seek all over the house like the kids used to when we first moved in. I didn't realize there were so many good places to hide.

Erik's birthday happened to fall on a Monday evening and Memorial Day we worked at getting packed as we all headed to different destinations for 10 days.

During June Tyler and I were in Alaska and the others were spread around.

Ash gave us a lesson on temples one night and on another we talked about trek and watched 17 Miracles. I shared a story about Tyler's Aunt Pam that was emailed to us 4 or 5 years ago by her husband Uncle Bob. 

She was participating in trek that year riding a horse. Aunt Pam was asked to take a leather coat to someone. But as the coat was being brought to her, the horse she was on got spooked by it, reared up, and landed on top of her with the saddle horn hitting her right in the chest. She knew she was in a lot of trouble as she felt the bleeding inside and immediately asked for a blessing. The ma's and pa's were asked to gather their families together and pray for her.

As she was given the blessing, she felt the feeling that she was bleeding go away and was told she would make a complete recovery. She was life-flighted to the hospital where a trauma team was waiting to perform numerous surgeries based on the EMT reports. However, there was nothing to operate on and the doctor found no evidence of internal bleeding.

The stake president who gave her the priesthood blessing later told Uncle Bob how it was revealed to him that her injuries were very serious and life threatening but that as he began the blessing he knew she would be healed and recover.

"We have been blessed with a miracle in our family that has been shared with hundreds of people. Pam worried that her accident had disrupted trek or taken away from it. Everyone tells us that the experience enhanced their experience and helped their trek families pull together as they prayed together for Pam."

April FHE

WEEK 1: Spring Break. We were in Oregon visiting "Man Camp" and then hit the pool at the hotel that night.

WEEK 2: I've never figured out how to have your house and yard stay the same during vacations. It seems we always come home to a lot of work that needs to be done, especially weeding. For dinner we had Dutch oven potatoes and then commenced an attack on the weeds. The neighbors/cousins looked out their window and decided we were having too much fun and joined us. Misery loves company, right? Afterwards we enjoyed some leftover Lemon Poke Cake from our Easter dinner at Grandma Laura's. 

WEEK 3: Mama Bear wasn't feeling terribly great, so we got out our buzzer game and played some quick trivia games that included questions from General Conference. Prizes were won and we are loving our Eggspert. 

WEEK 4: Nate was in charge and wanted to go for a bike ride. So we headed down to the only park we have here in Lake Point and played on the equipment, pulled some weeds, and played catch.

WEEK 5: I have felt an urgent need to get our food storage/72-hour kits/emergency essential up to par. I used to do so well and I've let things slide the last couple of years. Not that we've been occupied with other things lately :) So tonight we pulled out the 72-hour kits and took stock of what we needed to replenish and put them back together somewhat. Our 72-hour kits are basically our backpacking gear. I try to keep most stuff in there because it's rather easy to transport. But that means stuff gets taken out and not put back in when we go on backpacking trips.

March FHE

WEEK 1: It was the hottest day of the year and we decided to take advantage of it. The original plan was the dismantle the VCR/DVD combo that got fried in our power surge and rescue Blue's Clues for Alex. But that plan was put on hold while we all enjoyed a pleasant evening outside and then delved into Kiersten's chocolate cake. It is birthday week, ya know, and I tend to celebrate all month long whenever I feel like it.

WEEK 2: For Kiersten's drama class she needed to see a play and write a report. She could also pass off something for Young Women's. So a play it was. I had heard that the Desert Star Playhouse was a lot of fun and family-oriented. They were also showing CSI:Provo, Decaffeinated DNA which was a spoof on Mormon culture. Erik was pretty sure he didn't want to go and begged to stay home. Nope. This was FHE and so we needed everybody. Okay, I'd already bought the tickets which weren't cheap, so he was coming. Turns out that he actually thought the show was hilariously funny and wanted to know if we could get season tickets. Kiersten wants to come back for her birthday and thought it was better than going to the movies. Theater may not be the cheapest option, but I'd rather my kids got hooked on that than having to see every new show that opens at the local Cinemark.

WEEK 3: We finally got around to dismantling the VCR. I thought it would be an easy fix to get the tape out. We ended up taking apart the entire thing, before pretty much ripping it out. Alex was very happy that we rescued his tape. We finished off the evening by playing Spot It, a very easy, quick fun game that challenges your visual skills.

WEEK 4: This week hit the library to load up on books for our Easter break vacation and ended up at Best Buy looking at computers and TVs to replace the ones that got fried in the surge. Erik came out of there convinced he's going to buy a Kindle Fire. Actually, he's sure that Nate and he are going to buy it together. What a bad idea! Then Nate informed me a day later that he is going to buy the Kindle Fire for Erik's birthday. A bad idea just got worse.

February FHE

WEEK 1: Nate told me one day that he didn't know how to tie a real tie. So for family night Erik taught us how to tie a tie. It's a lot harder than it looks. After we had all practiced Kiersten and Erik had a tie-off to see who could be the fastest and have their tie look the best.

View the video of our tie-off here.

WEEK 2: Valentine's was the next day and I had been planning on making cinnamon rolls all day for breakfast the next morning. It didn't happen. So for FHE I taught the kids how to make cinnamon rolls. No documentation of the actual rolls exist, however, but they were delicious.

WEEK 3: For spring break we are taking a road trip to Oregon. I had the kids research different places to see, things to do, where we might like to go. Their list includes Oaks Park (a mini amusement park/skating rink), the Oregon Zoo, Powell's City of Books, Sauvie Island, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Tillamook Cheese Factory, Portland Japanese Garden, a lighthouse, Munson Creek Falls, Jazz vs. Blazers game. Tyler added whale watching and the aquarium. I'd like to visit the temple grounds since we'll be in a city with a temple.

We were so excited when we found out the Jazz are playing the Blazers the Monday night we get there. After much deliberation, we opted against attending the game. For one it was just too expensive; two, we would be sitting with the opposite team's fans; and three, the only Jazz game we've gone to this year happened to be against Portland. So we'll hang out in our hotel room and party that way.

WEEK 4: This week we wrote a silly family story. It was actually a sentence/drawing game we played that goes kind of along the same lines as the telephone game. Each person had their own paper and at the top they wrote a sentence about themselves or someone else in the room and then folded the paper back and passed it to the person to their left. That person then looked at the sentence and drew a picture about that sentence. They then folded the paper so that only the drawing was showing and passed it again. This time the person could only look at the drawing and write a sentence about the drawing. The game went this way until we had reached the end of the paper. It was hilarious to read how the original sentence changed.

JAZZ GAME: I stole Erik's pictures off his camera from when we attended the Jazz game for FHE in January.

January FHE

For Christmas my mother-in-law gave us a Chinese take out box filled with family home evening ideas for the next year (52 weeks) plus some spending cash to make it happen. Her only stipulation is that we had to take pictures and email them to her.
WEEK 1: Erik has been our designated photographer. However, I can't seem to find the picture of Ash giving the lesson. She read a cute story out of The Friend magazine about a girl who had earned some four quarters and headed to the store to buy something for herself but instead came home with a mix to make a chocolate cake for her dad's birthday. Ash even had four quarters and a chocolate cake mix as props to go with it. Darn it!

WEEK 2: We drew names and headed to the library to pick out a book for the person whose name we drew. The rule was we only had to read 20 pages of the book. Ash was pretty excited for me to read The Silver Crown by the author of The Rats of Nimh. She was pretty sure I had read the rat book and would like this one. I haven't but maybe I'll like The Silver Crown. In the next couple of weeks we're going to have everyone report on their book. A visit to Arctic Circle topped off the night.

WEEK 3: Usually the first FHE of the new year year we review everyone's height and weight and goals for the previous year and then record all that again for the new year. We were just a little behind this year and didn't get to it until the middle of January. Alex didn't really like standing on the scale but was happy to get his height measured. He was the one who grew the most. Ash has FINALLY put on a few pounds and I am continuing to shrink. Not sure I like where this is headed. We finished with Rango. It was a pretty lame movie in my opinion. I even managed to fall asleep for part of it. No surprise there.

WEEK 4: Erik gave us a lesson on how to get more out of sacrament meetings. Actually, I should say that John Bytheway gave our lesson. We watched several small clips with Erik thinking that each one was "the one" he wanted us to watch. He finally gave up and handed out small notebooks for his siblings and a pen to take notes during the meeting. 

**I read something today where the parents would right down questions about sacrament meeting to be asked after church. The one who could answer the most questions correctly got a small prize or treat. I think I'll have to try that one.

 WEEK 5: This past Monday Tyler surprised us all with tickets to the Jazz game. We had a most enjoyable evening with lots of cheering and yelling. The kids have all been a little hoarse this week and I came home with a headache from yelling so much. But those Jazz pulled it off.
Stayed tuned for next month's FHE.