FHE Tips and Tricks: The Schedule

At the beginning of 2013, I decided I'd had enough of the "who is in charge of planning FHE tonight?" game. About a week into the new year, I received a prompting on how to fix that problem and make our FHE a more regular occurrence with less frustration and contention. 

To be clear, this piece of inspiration was 50% the Spirit and 50% how my mom ran our home when I was growing up. Every month, she would type up a schedule with our FHE assignments: prayers, songs, lesson (as well as topic), and treat. My dad, as the patriarchal priesthood leader in our home, was always in charge of calling us together and conducting the evening (but we all knew Mom was really in charge). My mom started doing this in my early teen years. Even though she and my dad are now empty nesters, it always warms my heart to go to their home and see their FHE schedule on the fridge.

It seemed sort of pointless to me, however, to assign out all those things when it was just Scott and I and baby Kevin. So I decided, why stop with a month? Why not plan out a whole year of lessons? And our FHE schedule was born. 

How to put together an FHE schedule in five easy steps:

1. Pick a theme

Starting in December, Scott and I start brainstorming ideas for themes. A theme could be anything from a family scripture to a motto or a quote. Our first year our theme was "Establish a House" and we used the scripture found in D&C 88:119. Little did we know that we would be buying our first home that fall. In 2014, we chose a favorite scripture: Mosiah 2:41, "Consider on the Blessed and Happy State of those that Keep the Commandments of God." Let me tell you, I needed that reminder of the blessings and happiness that come from keeping the commandments as I spent 2/3 of that year miserably pregnant. This year we decided to take our theme from Preach My Gospel: "My Purpose." We both knew our purpose as missionaries, but we have been blessed to take these words and change them from not just helping others come unto Christ, but helping our children come until Christ. And, when I created our schedule during the first week of January, I didn't know that three months later we would both be serving in new (and rather large, daunting, missionary-work-centric) callings. There is an inspiration that comes as we prayerfully select our themes. We do not know what our years have in store when we start them in January, but our Heavenly Father knows our needs perfectly.

2. Split the the Theme into monthly topics

Once we found our theme, I took the scripture (or saying, in this year's case), and broke it down into monthly topics. For example, when our theme scripture was D&C 88:119, this is how our year was planned out:

January: Organize Yourselves
February: Prepare Every Needful Thing
March: Establish a House
April: A House of Prayer
May: A House of Fasting
June: A House of Faith
July: A House of Celebration (as you can see, I modified things a bit!)
August: A House of Learning
September: A House of Glory
October: A House of Order
November: A House of Gratitude
December: A House of God

In 2014, we followed a similar pattern and broke the scripture up into phrases, focusing on a phrase or principle each month. This year we have broken our theme (My Purpose) into the basic topics of the gospel, filing in with the other lessons from Preach My Gospel as needed. 

3. Schedule out the dates for the entire year:

Before I break into finding lesson topics, I find it is easiest to write out the dates of every Monday underneath our monthly topic. This way I know how many Mondays we have to plan for and can consider things like birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays.

4. Fill in the dates with FHE Tradition Nights 

There are certain Family Home Evening lessons and activities that have become annual occurences for us. These include: 

• Goal setting on the first Monday of the year
• A lesson dedicated to our yearly theme (the second week of the year)
• An emergency preparedness lesson in February
• A General Conference Review the Monday after conference in April and October
• A family service project night (usually in May)
• A family faith walk (usually in June)
• A trivia game night (usually in August)
• A family readathon (usually in September)
• A home organization evening (usually in October)
• A "Thankful Chart" creation lesson in the first week of November
• Our gifts to Jesus lesson, held a week or two before Christmas
• A Year in Review lesson on the last Monday of the year
• Birthday lessons (sometimes this is a lesson about a certain person in our family, sometimes it just means that the birthday boy or girl gets to pick a special activity)
• Bucket list activity nights (where we look at the activities we wanted to do together during the year and go do one of them)

We also take one night a month to focus on a specific type of lesson. In 2013-2014, we used these as Family History nights. For the first year, we just talked about people in our family history. For the second year, we focused on our eight grandparents. Most of the time, these lessons were our failures. The family history lessons were the first ones to go when something came up (like a special challenge from the bishop or a local activity we wanted to do instead, or a home improvement project that needed doing). When they did happen, they were wonderful. 

This year, in an effort to include Kevin in the teaching portions of our family home evening, we decided to only hold one Family History lesson (in June, after I attend a family history conference with my mom's side of the family). Instead, she is in charge of teaching one lesson a month which focuses on a scripture story that relates to our monthly theme. She and I take a few minutes that day to pick a picture out of the gospel art book or talk about something she learned in nursery the day before that she would like to share her testimony about. Last week she gave the lesson on prophets. Usually this ends up being more of a question and answer session, where she holds a picture and we talk about the story or principle, but she has a sense of ownership over these nights that I think is important. Once Sly gets a little older (aka able to at least listen if not sit still through an entire FHE lesson) he will have a chance to teach some of these lessons also.

5. Plan lesson topics and assign teachers

Using the monthly themes, fill in the rest of the Mondays for that month. For us, this usually means that we plan 2-3 theme-related lessons per month. We simply alternate whose turn it is to teach, unless it makes more sense for one of us to teach a certain lesson. During our period of non-existent FHE, the reason was usually that we couldn't decide who should be in charge or what our lessons/activities should be about.  With our schedule, we avoid all that because we know (well in advance!) who is in charge of what lesson. Sometimes, if Scott has an especially busy week at school or I'm not feeling well, we will substitute for each other. 

Here is an example of how our months have worked from each of the last three years:

August 2013: A House of Learning

5   The Importance of Learning (Mom)

12  Trivia Game Night (we invited some friends over to play wii Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit)

19  Family Readathon (we each picked a favorite picture book and read them together)

26  Family History Lesson (Miner-Mom; this one was about my grandmother who LOVED to read and learn)

December 2014: These Things Are True

1   The Nativity (Mom and Kevin)

8   Family Activity: Ogden Lights

15 Testimony Night (finish the Book of Mormon)

22  Gifts to Jesus (Dad)

29  O Remember Remember: Counting our Blessings (year in review lesson)

March 2015: Receive the Restored Gospel

2   First Vision, PMG Lesson 1 (Mom)

9   Family Activity (Kevin's choice, for her birthday lesson)

16 Priesthood Restoration (Dad)

23 Temples (Mom)

30 Scripture Story (Kevin and Mom)

Putting the Whole Document Together

After I go through and plan everything out, I format it all into a one-page document so that it can be easily hung in a page protector on our fridge. The page includes a title ("2015 Fowler Family Home Evening Schedule"), our theme, and each month and its theme bolded with all the dates and lessons/activities listed underneath.  We usually assign out prayers and songs and treats the day of (a week in advance if we are lucky). Those things are easier to figure out than the lesson, especially when your three-year-old only knows four songs and is the appointed song leader each week (because she can do that part and refuses to say prayers). 

Want to see an example of our schedule? Let me know.
(I am working on creating links to my schedule examples, but that is more work than my brain can handle this week. Come back later.) 

This is our third year of using our schedule pattern, and let me tell you, it works. Do we always stick to the schedule? No. Things come up. We like to be flexible. We also like knowing that if there isn't any specific lesson that needs to be covered (like teaching your two-year-old obedience and honesty after a bad week of tantrums), we can simply look at the schedule on the fridge and it is all planned out for us. No scrambling needed.

This is not a copyrighted plan. Use this method if you think it would work for you and your family! You don't have to wait until next January to start! The important thing is to be gathering as families consistently. 

A Few Words from Elder Bednar

And here's the witness of an Apostle if you don't believe me: 

"Sometimes Sister Bednar and I wondered if our efforts to do these spiritually essential things were worthwhile. Now and then verses of scripture were read amid outbursts such as “He’s touching me!” “Make him stop looking at me!” “Mom, he’s breathing my air!” Sincere prayers occasionally were interrupted with giggling and poking. And with active, rambunctious boys, family home evening lessons did not always produce high levels of edification. At times Sister Bednar and I were exasperated because the righteous habits we worked so hard to foster did not seem to yield immediately the spiritual results we wanted and expected...

"...Sister Bednar and I thought helping our sons understand the content of a particular lesson or a specific scripture was the ultimate outcome. But such a result does not occur each time we study or pray or learn together. The consistency of our intent and work was perhaps the greatest lesson—a lesson we did not fully appreciate at the time."

Start this week. Gather your family. Share a lesson. Protect your home. Unite your family.

I know these things are important. I know they have made a difference in my family. If you are stuck, ask for help. I love putting these schedules together!

Obviously this kind of schedule works best for families with children at home, but it can be modified to fit any kind of family (even an apartment full of roommates, a newlywed couple, or emptynesters).

PS- Thanks Mom. You created a monster. My children will be calling me "The Family Home Evening Attila the Hun."

100 Years of Famoween

One hundred years = roughly 5200 Mondays.

Mutiplied by thousands of families.

Compound all of this by a couple of hours of whining, crying, pleading, arguing, begging, pushing, rolling eyes, covered ears, touching and taunting siblings, warnings from parents, rescinded treats, spills and stains, off-key singing, last minute lessons, weak and strong testimonies, scripture stories, board games, walks and recreational activities, pictures of the prophets, and many dysfunctional families trying to make it work and you've got a century of one of the most beautiful institutions ever organized in this dispensation of the fullness of times.

Family. Home. Evening.

When President Joseph F. Smith asked parents to gather their children for weekly family meetings in 1915, the instructions were simple: "Families were to take time to pray and sing together, read the scriptures, teach the gospel to one another, and participate in other activities that would build family unity." (True to the Faith)

A lot has changed in 100 years: technology, transportation, food, clothing, politics, family size, family shape, household costs to name a few.

But there are some things that will never change: the gospel. The love of Heavenly Father and his son Jesus Christ. The restored gospel. The most basic unit of society: the family.

And because these things never change, the basic directions for family home evening haven't had to change, either.

I am grateful to have grown up in a family where FHE wasn't an afterthought. It happened. It happened consistently. It happened when we were babies, it happened when we were teenagers. It happened even when my dad was commuting to another state for work. Of all the memories of my childhood, those gospel moments we shared are some of my favorites. Yes, there were Mondays when nobody got dessert, when somebody got banished to their room, where somebody ended up in tears, where we got absolutely nothing out of it. But there were also Mondays where we grew closer together as a family, where we learned the basics of the Gospel, where my parents planted seeds of faith that have grown into adult testimonies and carried our family through trials, challenges, and triumphs.

I remember my Dad teaching us the plan of salvation, urging us to be righteous so we could be together forever. I remember my mom organizing family Olympics, teaching us primary songs, and handing out awards for the annual "What Did You Do This Summer?" contests. I remember my older brother video taping our family having dinner and then showing us the video for our lesson and urging us to take note of our manners and how often we said "please" and "thank you" (we had a lot to work on). I remember my dad pulling out his mission suitcases, telling us stories and sharing memories as he showed us each item. I remember celebrating Pioneer Day with a walk along the railroad tracks in our backyard. I remember playing games as a family. I remember how my mom would do a special lesson as each child celebrated a birthday. I remember my little brother dressed in a bathrobe with plastic balls stuffed up the sleeves as pretend muscles as he taught us the story of Captain Moroni and the Title of Liberty the week after 9/11 happened.

Then, as we grew older, my parents used family home evening as an opportunity to prepare us for adulthood. My brothers helped lead discussions on the priesthood. My dad would read us a few entries out of his missionary journal. We attended each other's events. And my mom, who was coined "The Family Home Evening Nazi" when she protested me going up to Girl's Camp on a Monday evening to prepare with the other youth leaders, made sure it happened. Every week.

When my brother came home from his mission, he taught us one of the lessons he had taught his investigators. When I was on my intermission, my parents let me use FHE as a time to practice my teaching skills.

When Scott and I were married, there was no break in Family Home Evening. I remember that first married Monday. We went to Seagull Book and used some wedding money to pick out a picture of Christ for our home. When it was just the two of us, FHE took on lots of different shapes: sometimes we would go out, sometimes we would stay in. We made cookies, wrote thank you notes, compared answers to questions we still had about each other.

There was a time in our marriage when school, a new baby, and what we called "life" took over. The roughest patch we have had in our marriage (we are talking a barefoot marathon over sandpaper) can be directly traced back to those six months where our family evening gatherings were more miss than hit.

It took work, but slowly we got back into the habit. We haven't stopped since.

And you know what? It is working.

A couple of weeks ago, Kevin was watching Strawberry Shortcake on my phone while I worked on the dishes and Sly napped. She ran into the kitchen screaming, "Mom! It's fam-o-ween! Shortcake is having fam-o-ween!" She showed me the screen where Strawberry and a handful of friends were sitting on a rug and reading and talking together. In her mind, that was Family Home Evening.

My heart was tickled.

Over the next week or two, I hope to share some things that we do as part of our FHE meetings that work for us. Maybe something will work for you too. It isn't always perfect. More often than not it ends in someone refusing to say the closing prayer and me overdosing on dessert. Sometimes one evening can feel like a century.

And sometimes one century is not enough to do one evening justice.

My Best Friend's Grandma

It isn't often that I have cause to pause when I'm cleaning up the kitchen, but I did yesterday. I went to grab a dish rag out of the drawer in the kitchen and the one that my fingers landed on happens to be my favorite, because it is filled with the most love. The once-vibrant blue, green, and purple yarn has faded with the chore of repeatedly wiping peanut butter off my daughter's fingers and pancake batter off our counters. The rag itself isn't perfectly square; it started out that way but that last crocheted corner is loose, as if it's creator ran out of steam, but pushed through to finish it anyway.

Actually, that's exactly what happened.

Two years ago, Scott and I were invited to join my best friend Kim's family in their Park City cabin to watch the Superbowl. When we got there, Kim's then 96-year-old Grandma was sitting in a easy chair, a blanket spread over her lap, her weathered hands keeping busy. I couldn't see what she was working on; I was too busy visiting with Kim and trying to control my almost-toddler. But, during the power outage that stopped the game, Grandma Neta finished her project and handed it to me. With love.

That is the kind of woman she was, and will forever be.

I got the text late Saturday night. "So Grandma's not doing good. Had at least 3 heart attacks yesterday. They've brought in hospice." Tears rolled down my cheeks. Kim used to tell me that I'd gotten the Allen Crying Curse by default; I was a roommate and friend that was always treated like family. It struck as I texted back and forth with my friend, and again the next day, when I held her close minutes after getting the "she's gone" phone call.

In my college writing program, it seemed almost cliche to write about losing a grandparent. We were just told not to do it. And yet, four years later, I find myself sitting here, needing to write about my best friend's grandma, her life and her death and all the moments in between.

I didn't know that Grandma Neta knew my grandfather, but when he passed away, she got ready and sat in the car in the garage until Kim's mom consented to drive her to his funeral. Perhaps she had known my grandparents as an acquaintance, but I always felt that she was there for me.

There was one Sunday in college when Grandma Neta invited Kim, our roommate Kami, and I over for lunch. Kim warned us beforehand: when her whole EFY (a scripture camp for LDS youth) group got food poisoning and she was just fine, it was more than likely the result of eating Grandma Neta's "everything but the kitchen sink and sometimes that too" Sunday dinners every week.

I remember that fateful Spring Break trip, the one that Kim and I couldn't laugh about until a year later. Grandma Neta was the biggest Aggie fan I've ever known (rivaled only, perhaps, by my mother), and when the Aggies made it to the Big Dance and were playing in San Diego, she was on her way. Two days into our first college spring break, Kim called and invited me to come with her, Grandma Neta, Grandma Neta's little brother Con and his girlfriend (now wife) Colleen to go watch the Aggies play. The trip was...well, it was as fun as any trip consisting of three senior citizens and two 18-year-old girls can be. We were unprepared for the adventure. Our constantly snacking student stomachs were no match for the one-buffet-a-day regime the rest of them were fine with. We lived on string cheese, crackers, and the delicious, life-saving, homemade candy Colleen's father had sent with us.  When the Aggies lost in the first round, we turned around the next morning and headed back to Utah. Kim and I desperately wanted to go to Tiajuana, just to say we'd been out of the country on Spring Break, but we never made it that last 15 miles. I still have a hard time eating string cheese.

Here's the thing about Grandma Neta, though. She wasn't just my pseudo Grandma. She was everyone's Grandma. She visit taught my aunt for years, even though she was well into her 90s, taking her to ball games and force-feeding her pineapple and cottage cheese and teasing her. Only days before she passed, she went to the ward Relief Society activity armed with handmade gifts for each sister (and my parent's ward, which also happens to be Grandma Neta's, is huge). There were homemade chocolates at Christmas, wash cloths for every wedding reception, and a smile and a hug and a few tears every time she saw a friend. I remember her at my wedding reception, introducing her to my babies, listening to her recite the Articles of Faith on demand during Relief Society and Sunday School whenever one was needed. She was a mother of many, a grandmother to all, and the greatest example of Christlike love I've ever met.  It is fitting that she left this life on Easter Sunday; I don't know anyone better prepared to meet her Savior.

So yes, I will write about her. Because I don't want to forget her love.