Kindness Chain, Thirty Ways #3

Tonight was fun to see.  We read in Matthew in the Bible how Jesus told the disciples that the sheep on his right hand were those who fed and clothed and served Him on earth and explained that "inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Beautiful beautiful scripture, one of my very favorites.

So we talked about how Christmas is Jesus' birthday and if we want to give Him a present, the best thing would be for us to serve others.  We started a kindness chain. Every time someone in the family does something kind we record the act on a strip of paper.  Then on Christmas Eve, we string all these strips of paper together in a chain of kindness and gifts we have given to Jesus this month.  The kids get super excited. In fact, we ended the meeting and within 3 minutes, there were already two strips with kind acts written on them.  So this really works!!! :) Then they wanted to draw secret service names for the week too which we did.  Each person has a another person in the family to secretly serve all week long.  Great meeting, great times with the family.

This evening was the first time there were some conflicts with our time. Our oldest is overwhelmed about a huge test tomorrow, Dustin walked in from work late, and the four year old was having trouble finishing her dinner. But everyone settled and calmed while we sang our Christmas carol and said our prayer.  Just when you think there is no way to add one more thing to an evening (like a Christmas devotional) you realize that one more thing might be the most important of all the things.

Thirty Ways #2

As Promised, Mandi taught our lesson tonight on Mercy and Grace.

We want to focus on all the blessings we have because of Jesus Christ.  Mandi taught us that Mercy and Grace are the infinite virtue.  We learned that we all give our very best which is never quite good enough to return to Heavenly Father but then Christ makes up the difference so we can.  Everyone's very best, their 100% is different. It doesn't matter.  When we give our all, Christ completes the path and we can return to Him some day.  And even better, He helps us to do our best, enabling us along the way.  It is the beautiful power of Grace.  It was a nice evening and decorating (and eating) Gingerbread people was super fun too.

Thirty Ways to Add Christ to Christmas

Hello everyone!
We have started our Christmas holiday season and I just LOVE it and the kids are really appreciating it and so I thought we would share what we do each day.

Yesterday was the first day and we set up a new smaller tree in a different room.  On this tree were all our symbols of Christ in Christmas.  We had a lesson about each symbol and then put them up on the tree.  We will add some more to it, but this is how it started:

Stars:  We found some glittery start ornaments and talked about how Christ is the light of the world. And He always leaves a path to find Him.  When He was born, God put a new start in the sky, announcing His birth and leading people to Him.  We can see the path God left for us to find Jesus today through our scriptures and the prophets words.

Bell:  We found some bell ornaments.  We talked about how shepherds call their sheep using a bell and by name.  We know that Jesus calls us to be part of His flock. He wants us to follow Him. We need to listen for His voice and do what He says.  The bell calls the sheep together for safety and for food.

Candy Canes: We love to decorate with candycanes.  We talked about how if a sheep strays from the flock, the shepherd uses the crook to bring him back in.  If we make poor choices and stray from the flock, we can repent and be brought back in with the shepherds crook.

And we put up a nativity set of ornaments. It had all the pieces. So as we hung up each piece, we talked about how that character is important in the birth of Jesus.

It was a beautiful evening. We all love it.

We will be focusing on the Atonement of Jesus through this next month as well as ways to serve Him and more about His teachings.  Tonight we asked our 13 year old daughter to teach us about Mercy and God's grace and how it applies to her. We'll see what she comes up with. :) And we will be decorating gingerbread people.  I better get baking!!!

I told the kids no matter what is going on through December, the 7 PM hour is mine. :)

Merry Christmas!!!