Monday, April 23, 2007

Hey, Everybody, It's Family Night!

Hey, everybody it's family night!
(update from last week: The car is still clean and it has been SO nice. The kids take everything in with them now when we leave the car each time.)



As I sat here, pondering what topic we should cover in Family Home Evening tonight, I suddenly remembered that I have been wanting to cover prayer for awhile now. Prayer is something that we do often in our home, yet Pablo is still having a hard time understanding what we are supposed to be doing in our prayers. Or, if he understands he isn't able to express it correctly. For instance, I can not get that boy to offer thanks for anything. That really is my main goal for tonight. To show them how, and why, we offer thanks in our prayers. So, here is the lesson I have outlined for tonight:

Opening Song:
I pray in Faith

Why do we write letters to Grandma? (Because we love her, miss her, she misses us and wants to hear about us, etc...)

Why do we pray? (to talk to Heavenly Father)

That is right. Did you know that Heavenly Father loves us so much, that he loves us even more than Grandma loves us? It's true. Heavenly Father loves us and he misses us too. We used to live with Heavenly Father before we came to earth so we were able to talk with him face to face, but now that we are here on earth we must pray in order to talk with Him.

Praying is a lot like writing a letter. In fact it is a lot like writing two different letters together, like a "thank you" letter and a regular letter to Grandma.

Here is a practice letter for praying. You can write down ideas for your prayers on here:
Do you remember when we wrote thank you cards after Christmas? We write thank you cards because we want people to know that we are grateful for a gift that they have given us.

Can you think of anything that Heavenly Father has given you that you should be grateful for? (our bodies, food, the scriptures, our friends, the sunshine, our current prophet, our family, etc..)

We have so many things to be grateful for because Heavenly father gives us EVERYTHING.

After we tell Heavenly Father what we are grateful for then we let him know what is going on in our life, just like a letter to grandma. We can tell him of problems we are having, or of things that we are trying to do to make Him happy.

What are some things that you can tell Heavenly father about? (troubles in school, trying to read my scriptures, people I'm trying to become friends with, etc)

Our Heavenly Father loves us so much that He wants to help us and to give us things that we need. So, we usually end our prayers by asking for things that we need. We should also ask for things that we would like other people to have.

What would you ask for? (help with my homework, help finding lost keys, help daddy to get better when he's sick, blessings for our Bishop because he works so hard, help to hear the Holy Spirits whispers, etc...)


Then we end the prayer "in the name of Jesus Christ, amen"


You can use this letter to help you pray if you want. Just remember that Heavenly Father loves you very much and that is why he wants us to pray to Him.


Closing Song: I Pray In Faith (we will repeat the opening song to help them remember it)




Treats: No bake cookies.

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