Happy Homes

Your parents love you. You can learn about how to follow Heavenly Father’s commandments and how to be happy from them. President Thomas S. Monson, First Counselor in the First Presidency, wrote about this recently.

Bring up your children in light and truth (Doctrine and Covenants 93:40).

Happiness does not consist of [great] luxury, [or] the world’s idea of a “good time.” Nor must we search for it in faraway places with strange-sounding names.
Happiness is found at home.
All of us remember the home of our childhood. Interestingly, our thoughts do not dwell on whether the house was large or small. . . . Rather, we delight
in the experiences we shared as a family. . . .

Seemingly little lessons of love are observed by
children as they silently absorb the examples of
their parents. My own father, a printer, worked long
and hard to support our family. And yet, following
church on Sunday, he often visited elderly family
members and brought cheer into their lives.
One was his uncle, who was crippled by
arthritis so severe that he could not walk or care
for himself. On a Sunday afternoon Dad would say
to me, “Come along, Tommy; let’s take Uncle Elias
for a short drive.” Climbing into the old 1928
Oldsmobile, we would proceed to Eighth West,
where, at the home of Uncle Elias, I would wait in
the car while Dad went inside. Soon he would
emerge from the house, carrying in his arms like a
china doll his crippled uncle. I then would open
the door and watch how tenderly and with such affection
my father would place Uncle Elias in the
front seat so he would have a fine view while I occupied
the rear seat. The drive was brief and the
conversation limited, but oh, what a legacy of service
and of love!

My young friends, let us determine . . . to make
of our houses happy homes. Let us open wide the
windows of our hearts, that each family member
may feel welcome and “at home.” Let us open also
the doors of our very souls, that the dear Christ
may enter.

(See Ensign, October 2001, pages 2–8.)

Filed under: Come Listen to a Prophet’s Voice, Lesson 23: I Belong to a Family, Thomas S. Monson, Doctrine and Covenants 93:40, Happy Homes, Lesson 23: I Belong to a Family, Thomas S. Monson

Family Love

Friend » 1983 » April

Sharing Time:Family Love

By Pat Graham

Pat Graham, “Sharing Time: Family Love,” Friend, Apr 1983, 17

Ye will teach them to love one another, and to serve one another. (Mosiah 4:15.)

Family members can show their love for each other in many ways. Love can be expressed by helping, encouraging, cooperating, listening, and teaching. Having fun together can be another demonstration of love. Think of the loving service you give to your family, and then think of the ways you receive love from them.

Instructions: Color house to look something like your home. Write your address over door. Color picture frames. Cut out house, then cut along dotted lines on each side of door. Also cut out picture strip, and slide it through slits on each side of door. Glue ends of picture strip together (see illustration). Show one picture at a time, and tell how family love and service is shown. You may want to draw strip of your own pictures.

Sharing Time Ideas

1. Enlarge house so that large sheet of paper can fit in front of door.

Illustrated by Karen Sharp Foster

2. Discuss family love with children. Give each each one paper, and ask him to draw picture of some act of love he did for someone in his family or that was done for him. Tape pictures together and show them one at a time through door of house. Let each child tell about his picture.

3. Pictures may be used to introduce the following songs: “Love Is Spoken Here” (Supplement to More Songs for Children, p. 2), “Family Night” (Sing with Me, D-12), “Family Night Is Fun” (Activity Songs and Verses, p. 18).

Filed under: Lesson 11: I Love My Family, Lesson 23: I Belong to a Family, Sharing Time, family, family love, love my family