A Special Family Home Evening

This week we had a special family home evening that I wanted to share because the spirit was so strong and I felt really guided when I planned it and put it all together.

Last summer we took some really cute pictures of the kids outside the Reno temple and I had wanted to get them hung but with the move coming and our limited wall space as it was I decided to wait until we moved. So last week when I worked on my personal progress in divine nature I thought getting those pictures hung would be a really good value project for me to do. So the kids and I went to the store picked out nice frames, picked out our favorite pictures and then ordered prints. I felt inspired to hang along side the pictures the proclamation to the world. I wanted to do a family home evening centered around talking about why we were going to dedicate a whole wall to these pictures and the proclamation. I wanted to focus on how important the temple is and how real their divine nature is. as I pray and pondered about it it came to me what I could do.

I had the week before taught the kids in great detail about the plan of salvation and it was a really spiritual experience. At the end of the lesson I asked, "do you feel a special feeling inside? do you feel really happy and loved?" they are said they did. I told them that was the Holy Ghost telling them that what I had taught them was true, that they are children of God and this is his plan for us so that we can return to live with him again. Angeli came running up to me and gave me a big hug, Ben exclaimed, "I want to go to heaven!", and Bridger said, "Mom, do you know what the spirit is telling me? He  is telling me that I am a child of God and that Heavenly Father loves me." Then tears welded up in his eyes and I gave him a big hug. It was a really special moment for me and the kids.

So for this lesson I followed up with that and I told them that they are children of God and that because of that they are royalty! They are princes and princesses. They loved that idea. We then decorated crowns and put them on...very cute. Then I asked, But where is our castle? The kids took a couple guesses and they got it, the Temple! We talked about how it is like our castle that Heavenly Father has given us. We talked about the special ordinances that we do there and the kids LOVE the idea of being together forever as a family. It was fun to talk about how in the temple we promise to act like royalty and then Heavenly Father promises us that if we will act like a Son and daughter of God (Royalty) then we will inherit his kingdom and all that he has. That was such a fun way to illustrate that to the kids. We talked about how it was our family goal to act like royal children of God so that we can be together forever with our Father in Heaven and our Savior Jesus Christ. The spirit was so strong as each child expressed how much they wanted that too.

Then we hung the pictures up on the wall. We talked about the proclamation a little bit and how it tells us how to live like royalty as a family. It was such a great way to make the most of my personal progress, family home evening, and my home decorating. ;) I loved how the kids applied it, Angeli asked "Would royalty talk with bad words?" (which in our house is saying "poop" and other such words like that), to which everyone replied "No!". :O)  I hope that every time they stop to look at that wall they remember the things we talked about and have a renewed desire to be true to the royal and divine nature they have inherited from their Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother.