Love at Home

By Karen Ashton

“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you” (John 13:34).

Can you guess the answer to this riddle? What is as invisible as the wind and as warm as the sun, can be given away without losing any, grows when it is shared, comes from your heart, and shows on your face?

The answer to the riddle is love. Love is a powerful feeling of affection, concern, and tenderness for another.

Your home in heaven was filled with love. Your Heavenly Father prepared a plan of happiness for you because he loves you. That plan makes it possible for you to become like him and return to live with him forever. Your Savior, Jesus Christ, suffered and gave his life to free you from sin and death. Heavenly Father and Jesus love you. Jesus gave us a commandment to love one another as he loves us. When you love others and show that love by your actions, you are following him. When you love others, you show that you are a child of Heavenly Father and a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ (see John 13:34–35). You become more like them.

Your home here on earth is the first and most important place to show love. You can do it in very simple but powerful ways—a smile, a thank you, a hug, a kind word or deed. You can say, “I love you.” Everyone enjoys hearing those words again and again. As you show love for your family, that love will grow, and you will help to make your home a heavenly place.

A home filled with love is a heavenly place.

A person filled with love is trying to follow Jesus.

Instructions

Mount the folding house and hearts on a heavier piece of paper or lightweight cardboard, and color them carefully. Cut along the dark black lines. Fold along the dotted lines to create a box house. Glue indicated tabs inside the house to secure its shape. Cut out the hearts. Begin with an empty house each morning. During the day, each time you remember to show your love for a member of your family, slip a heart through the slot in the top of the house. At the end of the day, open the lid of your box house, and see how many hearts you have collected. Try to increase the number of hearts you place in your house each day. Share this activity with your family, and see how many hearts you can collect together. (Make more hearts as needed.)

Illustrated by Julie F. Young

Sharing Time Ideas

Explain to the children that you must show your love through your actions. Have the children play Family Service Charades. In one bowl, have the names of all the children on slips of paper. In another bowl, have ideas for service. Have the child whose name you draw from the first bowl pull a slip from the second bowl and act out the service. Encourage the other children to guess what is being acted out.
Ask an adult member of the ward to share with the children a note of appreciation they have received from a loved one and tell why it was important to them. Have the children create a card from construction paper to take home to someone in their family.
Write on word strips a variety of kind and unkind adjectives children might use to describe people (for example: ugly, kind, stupid, smart, fat, skinny). Explain that some words we use to describe people can hurt their feelings and should never be said. Tell them that there are words that are loving and that should be used often. Place a trash can and a flower vase in the middle of the room. Invite children one at a time to talk about how one of the words in the example above makes them feel. Let the children decide whether or not the word should be put in the trash can or the flower vase.