Daily Scripture Study: Daily family "study" I have to admit is frequently sort of like this: I am tired, Dad is super tired (he tends to get up a 5 am, something the rest of us do not), we have just finished either reading a chapter book together that probably involves teenagers battling one another in some sort of life and death struggle that may or may not involve wands or Greek gods or dystopian societies, or else we have been watching something uplifting like The Clone Wars or Doctor Who and we settle down to read the Book of Mormon together. On a good night, we pass out the books and everyone reads a few verses, sometimes we even manage to sing a hymn or two first (in about 4 different keys with a few of us getting the words mostly right). On a not so good night or a "these kids have to go to bed NOW" night, I do all the reading, and it can admittedly be super short sometimes. Our scripture reading can generate some fascinating discussion though (mostly about things like why is it so important that we know that "Lehi dwelt in a tent"? Or even occasional play acting (who can resist acting out that final battle between Shiz and Coriantumr?) But most importantly, we do it. Every single night.
Daily Family Prayer: This is harder than you would think. We have been consistent with bedtime family prayers for many years, after scriptures and before the youngest kids are sent to bed, we have a prayer, easy peasy. But we have struggled with consistent morning prayers for almost as long. For a long time, and still sometimes, morning prayer was a rush at the door as we were kissing Daddy goodbye on his way to wherever after he was already late leaving. And goodbyes at our house can be involved...we used to seriously make the kids line up and then file past Dad for a hug and a kiss before he left (now we pretty much all just gang up on him and push and shove for our hugs... some discipline has definitely been lost as the parents have aged). Usually we are better now with our morning prayers and manage to gather everyone in Mom and Dad's room before seminary for a quick prayer. Admittedly, Fionn frequently cannot remember later that we said a prayer at all because she was at best semi conscious at the time. Still, this is something we have been working on for awhile, when everyone was home....well it really seldom happened that we had everyone there. Kegan wouldn't wake up, Rhys would wake up and then fall asleep on the floor in my room not to be roused again for hours, someone would have the 5:15am shift at the Y and already be long gone before the rest of us were ready... but we haven't given up, despite the narcoleptic tendencies of teenagers and the erratic nature of our mornings.
Weekly Family Home Evening: This is how family home evening goes down at our house now. First off, it is on a Sunday night because we can never all be there on a Monday. In fact Monday has never ever been a serious option for us. Did you know that almost all school board meetings are held on Mondays? Well they are. And our Daddy has been attending school board meetings for as long as most of his children can remember. Sometimes we can't always be there on Sunday either, if one person is missing, we try to still do it, if half the family has a fireside, well sometimes we skip, or try to make alternative plans... but, MOST Sunday evenings we make an effort. A good family home evening consists of two of the children teaming up like missionaries to give a lesson from Preach my Gospel. Last week it was the Plan of Salvation by Amik and Liam. Amik asked lots of questions, had us read lots of scriptures and generally got some decent discussion going. My favorite part "Why can't we remember the pre-existence?" And Fionnula's immediate (and logical, after all we had just been talking about bodies being part of earth life) response "Because we had no brains yet!" While Amik was leading the discussion, Liam was illustrating the Plan on the white board:
The depiction here of judgement day and all those spirits leaving the obviously dead bodies (their eyes are xed out) might be a personal favorite.
The lesson probably took 15 minutes, then we launched into what is, let's face it, the highlight of FHE: the game. We played "The Newly Wed Game", a favorite in our house, but the kids keep trying to come up with a new name since our teams do not involve newly weds but rather sibling pairs...the current title though is "the Creeper Stalker game" and I am not sure I really care for that one either. Other popular games are pictionary, charades, party quirks, pyramid and assassin...yes really, assassin. We tend to make all of these up ourselves having long ago thrown out our Hasbro version of pictionary because the clues were too boring and predictable, instead our Daddy makes up our fantastic clues, things like "Bert and Ernie on Fire"... you know (that particular example was actually a charades clue..... and it was very funny to see acted out).
So, end analysis: how are we doing? Ok. But as simple as it sounds to narrow down the truly 'important stuff" to just 3 things, they are all things that require constant attention and constant intention. If we are going to have family prayers, well we have to get people out of bed, if we are going to read scriptures we have to turn off the tv before Daddy is asleep. But despite the little bit of effort it takes at the end of a long Sunday of meeting after meeting to then also put together a bowl full of pictionary clues.... well honestly it is all worth it to see your 14 year old frantically gesturing in frustration at his stick figures on the board that so obviously (to him) represent "Dude looks like a Lady!"
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