Family Night Field Trips: Final Part

Our final plan of salvation outing was a trip to the cemetery.

What is this thing called death

This quiet passing in the night?

Tis not the end but genesis

of better worlds and greater light.

O God, touch Thou my aching heart

And calm my troubled, haunting fears.

Let hope and faith, transcendent, pure,

Give strength and peace beyond my tears.

There is no death, but only change,

With recompense for vict’ry won.

The gift of Him who loved all men,

The Son of God, the Holy One.

Gordon B. Hinckley

(Always loved President Hinckley's poem!!)

We talked about what happens when people die.  We talked about the spirit world.  We discussed the reality of the Savior's resurrection and the reassuring truth that we can be together with people we love even after the separation of death.  It was a meaningful, memorable conclusion to our little series of field-trips - maybe my favorite of them all. The cemetery proved the perfect spot to testify that Christ will truly come to earth again and that resurrection will really happen.

O death where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

Family Night Field Trips: Part III

After talking about the Savior, his life and atonement, death and resurrection, we focused our third field trip on the doctrine of Christ:

Faith

Repentance

Baptism

The Gift of the Holy Ghost

We went to our church building and talked about the important ordinances that happen there, particularly baptism and the sacrament.  We talked about the word covenant. We talked about Jesus' invitation: "Come unto me and have everlasting life."   We talked about how we do that.

"Wherefore, they shall come to the knowledge of their Redeemer and the very points of his doctrine that they may know how to come unto him and be saved." (1 Nephi 15:14)

Faith
Repentance
Baptism
The Holy Ghost

"Wherefore, my beloved brethren, I know that if ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of heart...with real intent, repenting of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ, by baptism—yea, by following your Lord and your Savior down into the water, according to his word, behold, then shall ye receive the Holy Ghost; yea, then cometh the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost."

We continued the conversation as we walked across the street to the temple grounds.  It was a beautiful evening.

"And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. Amen."

And amen. =)

Family Night Field Trips, Part II

Sometimes we talk about the plan of salvation with our children in terms of gifts our Heavenly Father has given us - gifts that enable His plan to progress, gifts that make our "immortality and eternal life" possible.   We find ourselves generally focusing on four central gifts (although, of course, there are more): bodies, agency, the Savior, and the Holy Ghost. 

Our first family night field trip centered on the gift of physical bodies, and the gift of agency - our innate ability to choose between right and wrong.

Of course, all of us, at times, make poor choices, disqualifying us from returning to God's presence if it were not for another gift - the most central gift in God's plan for our happiness  - the gift of Jesus Christ. 

Our second field trip took us to the James Tissot "Life of Christ" exhibit at the MOA.

We looked at pictures of the Savior's birth, life, death, and resurrection, and rejoiced that "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

And it was wonderful!
(We'll do a repeat of this field trip again in November when the Carl Bloch (!!) exhibit opens.  And someday, when we don't live next door to a museum replete with religious art, maybe we'll set up our own "gallery"  in the church or in our backyard with pictures from the New Testament gospel art picture kit, etc.  Wouldn't that be fun???)

Family Night Fileld Trips, Part I

Alma 24:14
"And the great God has had mercy on us, and made these things known unto us that we might not perish; yea, and he has made these things known unto us... because he loveth our souls...; therefore, in his mercy he doth visit us by his angels, that the plan of salvation might be made known unto us."

Wes and I are so grateful for our knowledge of God's plan of salvation.  His plan of happiness.  His great and eternal plan of redemption.  We are grateful for the perspective it provides for us personally and we've been overwhelmingly grateful for it as parents. 

There have been times when I've grappled a little to know how to discuss the topic of Wes's cancer diagnosis with our children (our oldest daughter in particular).  What should we tell them?  What should we not tell them?  The last thing we want is to burden them with "what ifs," but neither do we want to neglect conversations that might be needful or helpful in any way.  So we've prayed and mulled over the subject  a bit.  The [very clear!] guidance we've consistently received is simply:  teach them the plan of salvation. 

Duh. =)

Understanding the plan of salvation is pretty much the ultimate preparation for life, isn't it - no matter our various challenges and trials?!

Yes. It is.

So we, like you, try to spend time teaching our children the plan.  Most of that teaching is informally and naturally connected to our day to day living.  But of course we've also tried to find ways to teach the topic deliberately and directly.  We thought it would be fun to share some of the things that have worked for us in hopes that you'll share some of the things that have worked for you!  (Deal?! =)

One idea we discussed and carried out this summer involved a series of family night field trips.  You'll see right where this is going, but I'm going to do a separate post for each different trip (to save me from uploading a gazillion more pictures and to save you from reading a gazillion more paragraphs!).

Our first Monday outing was to the hospital where our children were born. 

We reminisced about each of their special birth-days.  We found pictures of tiny babies on the walls and talked about where our spirits lived before birth, why Heavenly Father sent us to earth, and why it was important for us to have bodies.  We sang I Am a Child of God, and I Lived in Heaven (I love that song!), and it was all very simple and low key. 

But it was fun and memorable and I know we'll do it again because it was so nostalgic of those near-to-heaven newborn days.  (Next time we'll take pictures of our kids as newborns!  It would have been fun to look through those as we reminisced!)

Another field trip post next week!  In the meantime, thanks to Jeanine for sending a link to this celebration of the Family Proclamation!  Check it out!  And thanks to Katie for the heads up about approved art!!!

Missionary Week: Final Part

There's a little missionary-related piece of writing my mom sent me a few years ago (after her and my dad's mission) that I've been searching for to post today. But I haven't found it yet.

And there is a topic in my mind that begs writing down. But it's just too late.

There's the idea we discussed of doing a mission recipe exchange. Thought it would be fun to throw around some good international cuisine. But since we're too tired to look up and type out our exact recipes, we figured you probably were too.

So until I either find or write or have energy to do the above (and perhaps you know me well enough to predict that that might happen in time for Missionary Week 2011), here's a little documentation of the fun we had together last week:

(I told you: we love the window crayons)

What I wish I had a video of: Lucy and her Daddy singing Deilig er Jorden (Norwegians' Beautiful Savior) to begin our Monday night missionary celebration. What I at least have pictures of:

A good fish dinner. Very Norwegian. Thanks Cannon Center.

Lucy's flag place mats. For our Norwegian dessert that I didn't make (but we did eat left over baby shower cupcakes; I figured: Norwegians probably eat cupcakes).

A rousing game of "I have a little Troll and he won't scare you...

...and he won't scare you...

...but he will scare you!"

There were braids.

"Hi little Hilda!" Wes said affectionately to Lucy when he saw her wearing her supposedly Norwegian hairstyle. "Erter og poteter!" Lucy replied with a big grin and a skip in her step. ("peas and potatoes" is her favorite Norwegian phrase.)

And there were blueberries,

And there was an all-around good time.

But my favorite?

A little "read aloud" from the (amazing) Christmas gift Wes's parents compiled for him (and each of his siblings). Do you have a bunch of missionary letters laying around somewhere? You might consider making a similar compilation. Or you might at least consider pulling them out for a family read. It was a real treat for us!

Feast on the Word: A Forum

Mosiah 29: 20
But behold, [the Lord] did deliver them because they did humble themselves before him; and because they cried mightily unto him he did deliver them out of bondage; and thus doth the Lord work with his power in all cases among the children of men, extending the arm of mercy towards them that put their trust in him.

We've been reading a lot of scriptures about trusting God in our family of late and they fill us with hope! We memorized this one at the beginning of the month. Lucy loved marking it up in her scriptures and correcting us when we'd tease her with phrases like "because they cried lazily unto him he did deliver them" or "and thus doth the Lord work with his power in some cases"

Helaman 5:12
And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

Lucy learned How Firm A Foundation in primary last year and has been singing it non-stop lately. We suspected, however, that she didn't have any idea what it meant. So this week for FHE we started to memorize Helaman 5:12 and experimented with "firm foundations." We built block towers on top of various bases (a sturdy, heavy wooden box, a cardboard box, and a pillow) to see which foundation was the most secure. Songs included Lucy's "Firm a Foundation," and The Wise Man and the Foolish Man. We labeled our strongest foundation with a picture of Christ and then "built our life" on him with blocks labeled with Lucy's ideas about "following Jesus"(learn, obey, love, share, help, etc).

We have Gene R. Cook's Teaching by the Spirit book on tape in our car and it has been the source of much discussion lately. Anyone read it? We keep talking and talking about various sections...

Finally:

For Christmas, my mother-in-law gave each of her grandchildren one of these darling framed temple pictures. Such a simple idea - such a treasure! My kids love them and want to sing "I Love to See the Temple" every time they spot their picture on the dresser.

OK! That's plenty for one day!
Look forward to your thoughts/questions/ideas!