Tonight was one of those typical nights when Family Home Evening was happening whether we were prepared or not. I knew Stan had been studying "Preach My Gospel" and wanted to start teaching our boys the lessons it contained. After an ordinary day of simply feeling joy despite anything spectacular happening, I turned to Stan at dinner and asked if he would give the lesson. We started in the usual way; Jacob conducting, song, prayer,article of faith. Stan didn't have any fancy visual aids, object lessons or pictures to teach his lesson (I always warn him against this when it comes to young children). At the last minute he grabbed a yellow memo pad. He told the boys the lesson wouldn't be long but that they needed to listen and not ask any questions until he was done. I have never seen the boys listen so intently to a family home evening lesson. Stan began to sketch out the Plan of Salvation and the Restoration. He explained it in such a beautiful way (not necessarily because of his art work). The boys stood up and circled around him. Immediately the Spirit was in that room. It taught me a great lesson about effective teaching. It is not about the visual aids, or how long you have prepared. When you teach gospel truths with the Spirit and bear testimony of it, the Holy Ghost cannot be restrained from being there. Stan could have been Luke Skywalker teaching them of the force and they wouldn't have listened any better. It was so cool to see. Way to go honey bunny. All of our lessons for awhile will come from that manuel.
We of course topped it off with a rip roaring game of duck duck goose and donuts for our treat. Second lesson: Have family home evening even if your not as prepared as you would like, teach the gospel truth and it will be a great success.
4 comments:
So neat! I'm glad you took a picture of Dad's sketch. Those little experiences like that are good to remember. I'm sure they'll remember that spirit for years to come!
Great drawing!!! That is a great example of being consistent like what Elder Bednar was talking about during conference.
First of all, I would like to comment on the frequency of your blog posts. Look at you go girl!
Next, I can't believe you posted this because this very same thing happened to us last night! During Conference I felt the inspiration that I should teach through all the conference talks for the next few FHE's until we are through them all. I started with Elder Scott's talk last night. All I did was read through it earlier in the day and jot down ideas of things I would like the kids to know. I had no visual aids, no games, nothing! It went perfectly. All the kids listened, the spirit was there. We learned. The End.
You're so right about just needing to teach pure gospel truth. Nice post.
I really agree that kids just get it when FHE is done effectively. My honey likes to give long doctrinal speeches... when that happens, we all learn the virtue of patience and still love him all the same!
:)
I love it when you share spiritual thoughts.
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