What I Learned in Family Home Evening

When I think I have creative ideas for Family Home Evening, I get excited to share.  I was looking forward to tonight and a discussion of preparing for general conference that is coming up this weekend.  As it turned out, there was a learning moment in this discussion for me as well.

I started by asking our children what they remembered from conferences past.

It was a bit chaotic, as usual.  Jeran, the resident actor/comedian, gave a version of a story he remembers from last conference that had us laughing.  He even fake cried for it.  (One of his secret talents...he's been able to do that since he was about 4 years old.  It's quite impressive.)

Then Joie told me what she remembered from conference.

Then Megan.

Then Gabby.

Then Nate.

As I listened, I realized the things they remember about general conference are the conference addresses we have reviewed as a family in subsequent Family Home Evenings.  Without exception, we have covered every address they remember.

It was another one of those humbling parent moments to realize those fidgety, restless, highly distracted and sometimes downright disruptive children of mine are actually (sometimes) listening in Family Home Evenings.

Ready for an example of how I, as a parent, would think that the things we discuss are actually not sinking in?  As I was summing up our lively evening with a challenge to prepare for general conference, I asked our children to think of things they need right now, and to pray about those needs and see how their prayers might be answered.  There was some confusion about this from the younger crowd, so I said (obviously without much thought), "If you could ask Heavenly Father for anything, what would it be?"


Gabby's instant response, "An iPod!"  


And Jeran's cryptic comeback, "He's God, Gabby.  Not Santa Claus."  


About then Tim skyped in (better late than never, right?) and in the excitement of skyping with dad, the challenge was lost...

Except that almost all of them have said something after the fact about keeping needs and questions in mind going into conference.  Yeah!  It worked!  (Although I think Gabby might still be holding out for the iPod.)

And tomorrow we won't be skyping with Tim, because he'll be home!!!