“Help Make It Happen,” New Era, May 2010, 26–27
Help Make It Happen
That’s what these young women from India say since their simple service project got their whole branch excited about family home evening.
The young women of the Chennai Second Branch, Chennai India District, wanted to encourage branch members to hold family home evening. It didn’t take them long to come up with a simple but practical idea. They made family home evening wheels: charts with a spinner to keep track of assignments like saying prayers, giving the lesson, and preparing a “sweet.”
The paper wheels were simple but colorful. They were assembled at a Young Women activity at the meetinghouse one night, each one personalized with photos of the family it was made for. Two of the young women, Sushmitha Santhosh Kumar, 15, and her sister Sujeetha, 14, were especially excited when they learned that as new members of the Church, they and their family would receive the first wheel.
“After Mutual we went as a group to their apartment and presented the wheel to their father,” says Daisy Daniel, 16. “The whole family seemed pleased.” The family had already talked about family home evening with the full-time missionaries, and the wheel gave them an added incentive to follow up on what they had learned.
The young women also made enough wheels to give one to each of the families of the Primary children in the branch. Then they made additional wheels for the full-time missionaries to give to new converts.
“Many of us in the branch are new members, and we aren’t used to holding family home evening,” Daisy says. “But I have a testimony that family home evening will help children and parents to pull together, and I hope that whenever these families see the family home evening wheel, they will think, ‘OK, our Church members love us, and they gave us this reminder, so let’s have our family home evening.’” She predicts that soon family home evening will be a weekly event for many people in the branch.
One Good Service Leads to Another
The family home evening wheels are just one of several service projects these young women have completed. In an effort to help a widow from the branch feel a little less lonely, the young women decorated a basket and filled it with lots of short, happy handwritten notes. “No one is there to take care of her,” Daisy says. “So we wanted to remind her that members of the branch are thinking about her.” The young women delivered the basket in person and explained that she could read a note each day to bring a smile to her face.
The basket of notes inspired another idea. The young women decided to write letters of appreciation to each other. “Each of us is writing a beautiful letter to each of the others,” explains Monisha Kalai Selvam, 13.
Long Live Family Home Evening!
Through these and other activities, the young women of the Chennai Second Branch are learning that even simple acts of service can bring people closer to the Savior. It may be that branch members will long remember the family home evening wheels because so many received them and are using them already. But even if the wheels are a temporary reminder, that’s all right too.
“Anyone can make their own wheel or chart or just sit down with pencil and paper and make plans,” Daisy says. “We just know that family home evening is important for everyone, and we wanted to help make it happen.”
Karthikeyan
Meganathan
Daniel
Bharath Raj
Photographs by Richard M. Romney