Family Home Evening

One of the thousands of things I adore about the LDS Church is Family Home Evening. Our Family Home Evening was extra special because we invited our local LDS Missionaries to come and join us! The Missionaries offered to come up with our activity. Boy, was it a fun one! We were ALL laughing and having a great time! The soundtrack to the evening was courtesy of Vocal Point from BYU. We had such a great time, and we all loved the lesson.

Each person in our group was given two cookies. Our task was to remove chocolate chips from within the cookies. We listened to Primary Songs that were performed by Vocal Point while we removed the chocolate chips to the beat of the songs. It was so much fun! Once each person was finished, there was a small pile of crumbs, and a small pile of chocolate chips. The missionaries asked all of us to count out ten chips. The kids loved it! When we each had ten chips, the missionaries asked us to take one tenth of the ten, and put it back in the bigger cookie pile. The kids had a great time trying to figure out the concept of "ten percent" and they did really well! Each one of us put our tenth back into the pile... and each of us still had a pile of chocolate! It was a beautiful way to demonstrate the idea of tithing.

I love tithing to my church. I SEE the tithing in action!!!

The Church explains, "One of the blessings of membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the privilege of paying tithing. This privilege is a double blessing. By paying tithing, Church members show their gratitude to God for their blessings and their resolve to trust in the Lord rather than in material things. They also help further the work of the Lord in the earth, blessing others of God’s children with the opportunity to learn of Him and to grow in the gospel.

Through the prophet Malachi, the Lord declared:

"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it" (Malachi 3:10).

Church members give their tithing donations to local leaders. These local leaders transmit tithing funds directly to the headquarters of the Church, where a council determines specific ways to use the sacred funds. This council is comprised of the First Presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and the Presiding Bishopric. Acting according to revelation, they make decisions as they are directed by the Lord. (See D&C 120:1.)

Tithing funds are always used for the Lord's purposes—to build and maintain temples and meetinghouses, to sustain missionary work, to educate Church members, and to carry on the work of the Lord throughout the world."

One chocolate chip to give back to the Lord. My children happily gave their one chip- and ate the other nine. What a super lesson!!!

"The ABCs of Numbers..."

Today was our final Sunday in the 21st Ward. It was bittersweet and memorable. Some of the harder moments were saying goodbye to our closest friends, hearing some of our favorite teachers gives (for us) their last lessons, and hearing some of the inspiring and thought provoking comments from our beloved friends and neighbors. Some of the best moments were when the boys happily walked to Primary and sat with their classes- they were THRILLED to be there and they didn't fuss! (Well, they fussed a little, but it was over who they wanted to sit next to!) For so long when the boys would leave Primary and when asked what they had learned they would just giggle or shrug and say, "I donno..."... but today, Carter proudly rushed forward to exclaim, "Mama!!! Guess what?!?!? I learned the ABCs of numbers!!!!" I asked him what he meant, and he enthusiastically shot his hands forward to show me his take-homes. There was a piece of paper, a small handmade envelope, and an official tithe slip. Carter was SO excited about tithing! When asked how much he will tithe he smiled and answered "21!" ... confused I tried to correct (10?)... he laughed and responded, "I wanna do 21!" This started us talking about his mission, he explained that he wants to ride a helicopter to get to his mission... I don't know that they do that kind of thing, but okay! We talked the whole walk home, and both Harrison and Carter were thrilled to have been able to be in Primary today.
Carter and Harrison both show off their Primary take-homes!

I am so thankful for this Church! I am so thankful for Primary! I am so happy to know that my boys both feel the Spirit and can both happily tell anyone that they love their Church, they love their parents, and they love Jesus Christ! What more can ANY parent REALLY hope for??? For us... there is NOTHING better.

Carter's tithe slip and envelope... note his tthe Kit Kat stains from reat! LOL!

Harrison made this puzzle- he is VERY proud of the H in the bottom right corner! "H is for HARRISON!!!"