GCFHE (General Conference Family Home Evening): Meek and Lowly of Heart...and the First Gift of Christmas

These FHE experiences were based off  Elder Ulisses Soares talk.  This was one of my very favorite talks from October Conference.  Yes, it is because I recognize the great need for more meekness in my life.  There it is.  I see it again and again as I bang my head against the wall :-).  I also see it in my struggles with parenting, because unfortunately my kids have picked up those traditions of their fathers. Darn it!  So, the Layton family is primed for this one baby!

We actually did three different FHE lessons related to this talk.

Lesson 1:
Brenden prepared and presented one of the lessons.  He walked us through the "Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How" of meekness and shared some great scriptures and thoughts about it.  He did a great job with it.  It is neat to have the kids take the lead with the lessons. We had a good time thinking of people we know personally and characters from stories and movies who are good examples of meekness.  It was meaningful to have them make connections and identify character traits in people they admire. They decided for an activity after the lesson we needed to watch an episode of "Merlin" since the character Merlin is such a good example of meekness.  I loved it!

Lesson 2:
Elder Soares quoted President Lorenzo Snow who said, "We have our little follies and our weaknesses; we should try to overcome them as fast as possible, and … should [instill] this feeling in the hearts of our children … that they may learn to [behave] properly before Him under all circumstances."

Preach My Gospel has a chapter entitled "Developing Christlike Attributes."  At the end of the chapter is a self-assessment tool that measures the different attributes.  We completed this assessment as individuals ahead of time and then for FHE we reported to the family about the two attributes that were our greatest strengths and the two attributes that were our greatest weaknesses.  Not surprisingly, every one of us ranked lowest on patience.  :-)

The past couple of years we have done "The First Gift of Christmas" as a family tradition.  The idea is that since it is Jesus Christ's birth we are celebrating, He should get the first gift of the season.  We each write down something that we are going to work on for the month to draw closer to the Savior.  In years past it sort of fizzled with holiday chaos and we forgot halfway through the month what the gift was supposed to be.  At least we try! This year we decided to focus on the same goal as a family so we could keep focused better.  Hence, our "First Gift of Christmas" this year was striving to be more meek through being patient.

We talked about how we can begin to change our behavior by identifying the moments of choice when we are choosing to be impatient (usually without even realizing we are choosing it!).  That journey begins with being aware of the "road signs" on the "impatient path" and recognizing that we are being impatient by what our behavior looks like, sounds like, feels like, and what fruit we have in our home and in our relationships.  Similarly, as we identify the "road signs" on the "patient path" we can become more familiar with what that choice is and how to choose that path instead.

Brenden made a great visual of this and we each filled it out according to our unique flavors of impatience :-).  We began praying as a family that we would recognize the choices we have when challenging circumstances arise and have God's grace to choose the "patient path."  This has been a great teaching tool in the days since we created them.  I have come back to it in moments of conflict and had the child identify what path they are on based on what they are saying, how they are feeling, what the fruits are, etc.  Then it is easier to help them see the choice they have in that moment to pray for grace and choose the other path.  I suspect we are going to have more success with our gift to the Savior this Christmas, but I'm sure it's going to take these parents and children much longer than a month to re-tradition this attribute!

Lesson 3:
Elder Soares said, "Another important step to becoming meek is learning how to control our temper. Because the natural man dwells within each one of us and because we live in a world full of pressure, controlling our temper may become one of the challenges in our lives. . .We must learn to control our temper and convey our feelings with patience and gentle persuasion."

We have had many stressors lately with the move, and this talk was a great reminder that those pressures that lead to stress are a normal part of the human experience for adults and children.  When we don't deal with them in positive, intentional ways it can lead to more stress and impatience in our relationships.  I forget sometimes that my kids feel pressure from the different demands in their lives and they need help knowing how to cope with those feelings.  When our four oldest were preschool kids we made "Happy Heart Charts" as a way to teach them about different positive things they could do when they were upset to help them find their "happy heart."  We decided to revisit that lesson and each make a visual reminder of the different positive things that help us find our "happy heart" when we are overwhelmed by the stress and pressure of life.  It was fun to see how we are different and similar in many ways and how we can help each other have the opportunities to take a walk together, talk about challenges, or play a game as a way to help us reduce pressure and increase our capacity to be more meek and patient.

These are Brinnley's and Bryce's Happy Heart Charts.

This talk was a great springboard for some things we were needing to address with our family anyway.  I just didn't have the focus and the inspiration about how to address them until we started doing this.  I know that as we strive to be more intentional about teaching correct principles in our homes the Lord blesses us with grace and we receive the help and wisdom we need to help our families grow up unto the Lord.