Family Home Evening Lesson #81: FOR THE STRENGTH OF YOUTH--WORK AND SELF RELIANCE

1. Opening Prayer

2. Sing "Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel" Hymns pg. 252

3. Read Doctrine & Covenants 58:27    Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness.

4. Read and discuss the following from "For the Strength of Youth"

Work is honorable. Developing the capacity to work will help you contribute to the world in which you live. It will bring you an increased sense of self-worth. It will bless you and your family, both now and in the future.

Learning to work begins in the home. Help your family by willingly participating in the work necessary to maintain a home. Learn early to handle your money wisely and live within your means. Follow the teachings of the prophets by paying your tithing, avoiding debt, and saving for the future.

Set high goals for yourself, and be willing to work hard to achieve them. Develop self-discipline, and be dependable. Do your best in your Church callings, schoolwork, employment, and other worthwhile pursuits. Young men should be willing to do what is needed to be prepared to serve a full-time mission. Heavenly Father has given you gifts and talents and knows what you are capable of achieving. Seek His help and guidance as you work to achieve your goals.

The Lord has commanded us not to be idle. Idleness can lead to inappropriate behavior, damaged relationships, and sin. One form of idleness is spending excessive amounts of time in activities that keep you from productive work, such as using the Internet, playing video games, and watching television.

Do not waste your time and money in gambling. Gambling is wrong and should not be used as a form of entertainment. It is addictive and can lead to lost opportunities, ruined lives, and broken families. It is false to believe that you can get something for nothing.

One of the blessings of work is developing self-reliance. When you are self-reliant, you use the blessings and abilities God has given you to care for yourself and your family and to find solutions for your own problems. Self-reliance does not mean that you must be able to do all things on your own. To be truly self-reliant, you must learn how to work with others and turn to the Lord for His help and strength.

Remember that God has a great work for you to do. He will bless you in your efforts to accomplish that work.

5. Closing Prayer

Additional Resources: Becoming Self Reliant (Ensign, Oct. 1991)

Two Principles for Any Economy (Ensign, Oct. 2009)
Murmuring and Mowing

Family Home Evening Lesson #80: OPPORTUNITIES TO DO GOOD

1. Opening Prayer

2. Sing "Have I Done Any Good" Hymns pg. 223

3. Read Mosiah 2:17  And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.

4. Read and discuss the following from Henry B. Eyring in the May 2011 Ensign:

My dear brothers and sisters, the purpose of my message is to honor and celebrate what the Lord has done and is doing to serve the poor and the needy among His children on earth. He loves His children in need and also those who want to help. And He has created ways to bless both those who need help and those who will give it.

Our Heavenly Father hears the prayers of His children across the earth pleading for food to eat, for clothes to cover their bodies, and for the dignity that would come from being able to provide for themselves. Those pleas have reached Him since He placed men and women on the earth.

You learn of those needs where you live and from across the world. Your heart is often stirred with feelings of sympathy. When you meet someone struggling to find employment, you feel that desire to help. You feel it when you go into the home of a widow and see that she has no food. You feel it when you see photographs of crying children sitting in the ruins of their home destroyed by an earthquake or by fire.

Because the Lord hears their cries and feels your deep compassion for them, He has from the beginning of time provided ways for His disciples to help. He has invited His children to consecrate their time, their means, and themselves to join with Him in serving others.

5. Closing Prayer

Additional Resources: Opportunities to Do Good (Ensign, May 2011)
FHE Resource Book, Lesson 23: Loving Our Neighbors
Serving God by Serving Others

Family Home Evening Lesson #79: THE TEMPLE IS A HOUSE OF GOD

1. Opening Prayer

2. Sing "I Love to See the Temple" Children's Songbook pg. 95

3. Read The Family: A Proclamtion to the World, Paragraph 3   Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally.

4. Read and discuss the following from the July 2011 Friend:

Everyone must be baptized to return to Heavenly Father. Many of Heavenly Father’s children died without being baptized. After you turn 12, you can be baptized in the temple for those people so they can have the same blessings.

In the temple we also receive an endowment, or gift. This gift is the promise that if we keep the commandments, we can have eternal life.

In the temple a husband and wife can be sealed as a family for time and eternity. That means if they stay worthy, they will be married forever as part of an eternal family.  Everything done in the temple is done by the priesthood—the power and authority of God.

To go inside the temple, you must be at least 12 years old and be baptized and confirmed. You need to believe in Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, and in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You need to strive to live Heavenly Father’s commandments. Your bishop or branch president will interview you to make sure you are worthy to enter the temple, and you will receive a temple recommend to show at the temple. Having a recommend means that you are living the way you should to go inside.

When you stay on the path that takes you to the temple, you will be prepared to go there “to feel the Holy Spirit, to listen and to pray. For the temple is a house of God, a place of love and beauty.”

5. Closing Prayer

Additional Resources: Temples (lds.org)
A Place of Love and Beauty (Friend, January 2002)
The Holy Temple, a Beacon to the World (Ensign, April 2011)

Family Home Evening Lesson #78: THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST HAS BEEN RESTORED

1. Opening Prayer

2. Sing "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" Hymns pg. 26

3. Read Joseph Smith History 1:17   I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other— This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him! 

4. Read and discuss the following from the May 2011 Friend:

Do you know what the word restore means? It means to bring something back to the way it was.

When Jesus Christ was on the earth He taught His gospel. He taught faith, repentance, baptism by immersion, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. He gave His Apostles His authority, which is the priesthood of God. The Church of Jesus Christ was on the earth.

After Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, His Apostles went forth to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, but many people rejected them. The Church of Jesus Christ and the priesthood were taken from the earth for hundreds of years.

In 1820, young Joseph Smith was reading in James in the New Testament. He read, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God” (James 1:5).

Joseph wanted to know which church to join. He decided to do what the scripture said.

Joseph went to a grove of trees one spring morning and knelt in prayer to ask of God. As he was praying, a bright light descended. In that light stood two glorious heavenly beings: Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.

Joseph asked Them which church he should join. Jesus Christ told Joseph to join none of the churches.

Three years later, Joseph was visited by the angel Moroni, who taught him about the Book of Mormon and showed him where the golden plates were buried.

John the Baptist and the Apostles Peter, James, and John came to earth to ordain Joseph Smith to the priesthood of God. The priesthood was once again on the earth.

The true Church was restored—or brought back—to the earth. We are blessed to have the restored Church on the earth. The Lord’s Church today is called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

5. Closing Prayer

Additional Resources: Joseph Smith Seeks Wisdom in the Bible (Gospel Art Picture Kit)
The First Vision (Gospel Art Picture Kit)
Restoration  (Friend, May 2007)

Family Home Evening Lesson #77: JESUS CHRIST IS MY SAVIOR AND REDEEMER

1. Opening Prayer

2. Sing "He Sent His Son" Children's Songbook pg. 34

3. Read Articles of Faith 1:3  We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.

4. Read and discuss the following from the April 2011 Friend:

What would you be willing to give for someone you love very, very much? Our Savior, Jesus Christ, loves us so much that He gave His own life for us.

Heavenly Father knew that if we sinned and made mistakes, we would not be able to live with Him again. So His Son, Jesus Christ, offered to be our Savior. Heavenly Father chose Him to save us because He was the only one who could live a life without sin.

Jesus suffered and died to save us from death and our sins. This loving act is called the Atonement. Because of the Atonement, we can repent of our sins, be forgiven, and become clean and pure, as Jesus is.

Jesus was crucified and died, but after three days He was resurrected. He lived again! Because He was resurrected, we will be resurrected too. This means that our bodies and spirits will be reunited forever.

Truly, Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer. He is the perfect example for all of us. He taught us how to treat one another with kindness. He taught us how to serve one another. He taught us how to become better. We won’t be able to live a perfect life as He did, but we can return to live with Jesus and Heavenly Father by obeying the commandments and doing our best. We need to follow Jesus Christ every day.

5. Closing Prayer

Additional Resources: Heavenly Father Provided Us a Savior (FHE Resource Book)
Jesus Praying in Gethsemane (Gospel Art Picture Kit)
The Beautiful Day (Friend, April 2011)
Christ's Resurrection (Friend, March 1986)

Family Home Evening Lesson #76: PROPHETS IN THE LAND AGAIN

1. Opening Prayer

2. Sing "We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet"  Hymns pg. 19

3. Read Doctrine & Covenants 1:38  What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.

4. Read and discuss the following from Jeffrey R. Holland in the October 2006 Ensign

In my own expression of testimony and gratitude for the messages and meaning of general conference, may I suggest three things these twice-yearly gatherings declare to all the world.

First, they declare eagerly and unequivocally that there is again a living prophet on the earth speaking in the name of the Lord. And how we need such guidance! Our times are turbulent and difficult. We see wars inter-nationally and distress domestically. Neighbors all around us face personal heartaches and family sorrows. Legions know fear and troubles of a hundred kinds . . . It is no trivial matter for this Church to declare to the world prophecy, seership, and revelation, but we do declare it. It is true light shining in a dark world, and it shines from these proceedings.

Secondly, each of these conferences marks a call to action not only in our own lives but also on behalf of others around us, those who are of our own family and faith and those who are not.  We are reminded of the 150th anniversary of those handcart companies that, as general conference was convening in October of 1856 in the Salt Lake Valley, were staggering through the last freezing miles of Nebraska and were soon to be stranded in the impassable snows of the high country of Wyoming. President Brigham Young’s inspiring general conference message to those Saints was simply “go and bring in those people now on the plains.” 

As surely as the rescue of those in need was the general conference theme of October 1856, so too is it the theme of this conference and last conference and the one to come next spring. It may not be blizzards and frozen-earth burials that we face this conference, but the needy are still out there—the poor and the weary, the discouraged and downhearted . . . they are all out there with feeble knees, hands that hang down, and bad weather setting in. They can be rescued only by those who have more and know more and can help more. And don’t worry about asking, “Where are they?” They are everywhere, on our right hand and on our left, in our neighborhoods and in the workplace, in every community and county and nation of this world. Take your team and wagon; load it with your love, your testimony, and a spiritual sack of flour; then drive in any direction. The Lord will lead you to those in need if you will but embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Open your heart and your hand to those trapped in the twenty-first century’s equivalent of Martin’s Cove and Devil’s Gate. In doing so we honor the Master’s repeated plea on behalf of lost sheep and lost coins and lost souls. 

Lastly, a general conference of the Church is a declaration to all the world that Jesus is the Christ, that He and His Father, the God and Father of us all, appeared to the boy prophet Joseph Smith in fulfillment of that ancient promise that the resurrected Jesus of Nazareth would again restore His Church on earth.  This conference and every other conference like it is a declaration that He condescended to come to earth in poverty and humility, to face sorrow and rejection, disappointment and death in order that we might be saved from those very fates as our eternity unfolds, that “with his stripes we are healed.” This conference proclaims to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people the loving Messianic promise that “his mercy endureth for ever.” 

To all of you who think you are lost or without hope, or who think you have done too much that was too wrong for too long, to every one of you who worry that you are stranded somewhere on the wintry plains of life and have wrecked your handcart in the process, this conference calls out Jehovah’s unrelenting refrain, "My hand is stretched out still. I shall lengthen out mine arm unto them,” He said, “[and even if they] deny me; nevertheless, I will be merciful unto them, … if they will repent and come unto me; for mine arm is lengthened out all the day long, saith the Lord God of Hosts.” His mercy endureth forever, and His hand is stretched out still. His is the pure love of Christ, the charity that never faileth, that compassion which endures even when all other strength disappears.

5. Closing Prayer

Additional Resources: Prophets in the Land Again (Ensign, Oct. 2006)
Heavenly Father Speaks to Us Through His Prophets (Friend, March 2011)
Heeding the Voice of the Prophets (Ensign, July 2008)