Best Day
By Jenna Koford
August 28, 2015
Have you read how children answered the question, “How do I know if something is appropriate to do on Sunday?” on page 21 of the August magazine? For a family home evening, you could talk about what your family will do to worship Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ on the Sabbath. You could even try starting a new Sunday family tradition like writing letters to family members or missionaries.
Editor’s note: Here’s a great weekly tip from a few years ago that could prompt ideas of your own! “Sunday Bin” (May 18, 2012)
Back-to-School Feast and Theme
By Jeanine Crane
August 21, 2015
One of my favorite family traditions is our back-to-school feast and theme. Every year, usually the night before school starts, we have a little “feast” and introduce a new school-year theme for our family. Since it is their feast, my kids get to decide the menu and I set the table nicely and display our new theme. My four boys can hardly wait to discover the new theme!
Our theme this past year was “Suit up!” We discussed knights and armor—putting on the armor of God and also acting like a knight (being a good friend, acting like a gentleman, etc). Every week at family night we had a “knight fun fact” and asked our kids how they behaved like a knight during the week. Near the end of each summer my husband and I prayerfully and thoughtfully decide what our family needs to focus on for the upcoming year. We then try to incorporate a song or scripture and a way to include the theme in our weekly family home evenings. We are looking forward to revealing our new theme at the end of the month!
Special Standards Section
By Marissa Widdison
August 14, 2015
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During this time of year, many students are returning to school for a new academic year. To help them gear up for the challenge of living gospel standards in today’s world, this month’s Friend has about a dozen pages of great stories and activities focused on keeping high standards. Two posters—on pages 11 and 20—encourage kids to stay strong and follow Jesus Christ. Then check out pages 20–31! The section includes:
- A Q&A about keeping the Sabbath day holy
- A story about a boy making good media decisions
- Discussion points and a printable reminder to “aim for the best"
- Stories from children around the world about maintaining high standards
- A dancing activity
- Simplified sheet music for “Dare to Do Right”
- A message from Elder Quentin L. Cook
We hope you will find something in this section to help your children stay strong and keep their standards high!
Your Spiritual Pedigree
By Jocelyn Christensen
August 7, 2015
During a recent family lesson about The Family: A Proclamation to the World, we talked about origins. The children often want us to remind them where they were born and retell their birth stories. But what I wanted them to remember this time was that their birthplace isn’t as important as where we all came from in the first place—that we left God’s presence in order to come to earth and return to Him someday.
The Proclamation teaches: “In the premortal realm, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshipped God as their Eternal Father, and accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life.”
To go along with our discussion, we cut out figures representing each person in our family using a map of their place of birth.
