Tuesday 8 May 2012

He Truly Loves Us

What a giggle we had last tonight for FHE, it was one of those good ones....so here goes :)

Some of the children have been using rude and cheeky words to each other (nothing too serious, in case you're worrying, or wondering), which hasn't made for a nice atmosphere in the home when they've been said, so we decided we needed a conference talk that was apt for this....and Paul E. Koelliker of the Seventy's talk jumped out at me, maybe it had something to do with the title 'He Truly Loves Us'.



I shared how Elder Koelliker had spent some time with two missionaries and as they were reflecting on their day and the people they had met they had these 3 questions....but before I read the quote below I asked everyone to listen for 3 concerns that the missionaries had-
 “How can we help each individual develop a desire to know more about Heavenly Father? How do we help them feel His Spirit? How can we help them know that we love them?”
I actually ended up having to read this 3 times as the two youngest children kept being a distraction (nothing out of the norm there then)...but we got the right answers in the end.  We then jumped to the next story about another couple of missionaries that knocked on somebody's door and got this reaction -
The door opened, and a rather large man greeted them in a less-than-friendly voice: “I thought I told you not to knock on my door again. I warned you before that if you ever came back, it would not be a pleasant experience. Now leave me alone.” He quickly closed the door.
 We talked about how these Elders would have felt and what their reaction could have been....and then we read what they did -
As the elders walked away, the older, more experienced missionary put his arm on the younger missionary’s shoulder to comfort and encourage him. Unknown to them, the man watched them through the window to be sure they understood his message...as he witnessed the expression of kindness between the two missionaries, his heart was instantly softened. He reopened the door and asked the missionaries to come back and share their message with him.
As we discussed how this simple action of Christlike love helped to share the gospel, we shared how our thoughts, actions and words can be an example to others....and now this is where all the giggling begun with our game.

We had one of the children sit at the front of the room with a headband on...or in our case a length of spotted fleece, while another child handed out one small piece of card and pen to each family member.  All of us had to then write a nice word at the top of our card that described the person sat at the front.


One by one we put our card in the headband and tried to describe the word by sharing things the person does to be the word we had chosen and then the person wearing the headband would have to try and guess what the word was...it was lovely to hear everyone share different examples of how this person was being a good example to them, and it was also great because everybody was using good words towards each other...and the children couldn't wait to picked to go next.


You might be wondering where all the giggling came from but we laughed because the fleecy headband made people's hair go funny and kept slipping down, some of the explanations of words were hilarious as were the guesses....I think we will have to remember to play this game again sometime soon, and not just to get our kids to use nice words but to have a good old laugh together :)

We summed the evening up by reminding everyone that we can be good missionaries through the way we act and the words we use, and that through these simple everyday things we can feel His love as will others around us.

1 comment:

  1. Forgot to mention that we stuck all the cards up on the kitchen door to remind all of us during the week to use our 'kind words' towards each other...and so far, it's working pretty good :)

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