Family Home Evening Helps: Relatively Speaking

We might think to tell our children remarkable stories about their ancestors who lived long ago. But what about sharing stories of their living relatives? To help our young children visualize things, for a family home evening lesson we made a simple family tree out of construction paper and decorated it with photos of four relatives they know. With the placement of each photo, I told a memorable story about that person. Three days after this lesson, I asked my then four-year-old if he remembered any of the stories. I was surprised when he recounted them in great detail. My husband and I then decided to take turns presenting this special lesson whenever we or one of our relatives has a story that goes along with a home evening lesson. We also write the stories down and put them with the pictures in a binder. By doing this, we are creating a memorable collection of family stories, which we hope our children will someday share with their children.
Emily Cushing, Utah

Illustration by Beth Whittaker