Love/Service Family Home Evening
by Melanie Day

To start, we watched a FHE video called "Serving Others with Love" (6:55 min) You probably have this video hanging around your house. It was put out by the church in 1987. It is video clip #11. You can see what it looks like here:  http://tinyurl.com/2d9s9b

Anyway, we watched the movie and reviewed what we learned about service/kindness. I asked the kids why we serve others? Do we have to love those we serve? It is a good way to learn to love someone?? We then spoke about Christ and how he is our ultimate example of love and kindness.

We played a game with conversation hearts. Earlier in the afternoon I took some candy hearts from a bag and made ten matches, so we had 20 hearts. Then we sat at the kitchen table, turned over the hearts so you couldn't see the words. Then we played Memory. Once you got a match you got to eat your hearts. Only one of my four children know how to read, but we helped them and they were so thrilled when it matched!

Earlier in the day I had drawn some hearts on paper. On each heart I put one of my favorite Primary songs about love (My absolute favorite song is My Heavenly Father loves me!) I had also gone to our bookshelf and pulled out a book for each heart I had made. Then I randomly placed a heart throughout each book. So after our game was finished, we sat down on the couch and read the stories to our kids. Whenever we got to a heart in the book, we had to stop and sing the song I put on the heart.

When we finished that, I had purchased some new PJ's for a Valentine present. Instead of giving them their PJ's on Valentine's, I decided to give it to them at the end of FHE. We went on a love hunt. I wrote out some clues and they had to find their wrapped presents. However, they had to work together or no one would get their gifts. They had a ball!

Treat - Cake box cookies

Take one white cake mix, 2/3 c. shortening and two eggs. Mix it together until it is a play dough consistency. My kids made hearts with a cookie cutter and we baked them according to box instructions. After they were cooled we put two cookies together with pink frosting. We made up some plates and took them to our neighbors.