When the hubs and I first got married, we set out to try to have Family Home Evening every week. Of course with our schedules and everything we haven’t been 100% about it. Usually Mondays are set aside for our little family night but sometimes that just doesn’t happen. And that’s ok, we just will have it on Tuesday or Wednesday. The key is just finding a set time each week that works for you. Even if it’s just 10-15 minutes. I think it has been such a blessing in our marriage and I’m grateful for a sweet boy that is so diligent about it. It has allowed us to have many more spiritual conversations then we would have otherwise. It has also set a habit of having family night every week which is something I want to continue with my future kids.
I know it may seem like it would be totally awkward to have FHE with just you and your spouse but I promise you can make it completely natural and normal and it will strengthen your marriage. You don’t have to be so formal about it and it doesn’t always have to be about a spiritual topic. These are some ideas that the hubs and I do for our FHE’s:
1. Watch the new “Mormon Messages” video and talk about it.
2. Find a recent devotional address or talk that you’ve come across and talk about what you learned and how you felt. (I have been on an Elder Holland kick lately and have found soooo many amazing talks that I just can’t wait to share with the mister and I often don’t wait until Mondays) You can find some really great talks from him and others from BYU devotionals HERE.
3. Use the latest General Conference Ensign and pick a talk from it. You can read it together or just summarize it for your spouse and discuss it. It's a great way to remember the messages that were shared.
4. Currently our ward is doing a FHE challenge with the For Strength of Youth pamphlet. I didn’t know how to work with it at first seeing as it is directed primarily toward single teenagers and kids, but the topics in the pamphlet are still relevant to any of us and future parents of youth. Some of them are a little more difficult like dating or . But you can spin it a different way and discuss the importance of continuing to date your spouse.
5. You don’t always have to have a “lesson” per say. You can have activities that focus on strengthening your relationship. It can be sort of like an at-home date night.
6. I found some super great ideas via Living our Dream Life blog that I suggest everyone try. Here are some of my favorite ideas:
* Act out, draw, or sculpt various scripture stories. Turn it into a guessing game.
* Make an emergency plan together. Figure out what you would do if there was a fire/ earthquake/ flood/ tornado/ etc. Get old backpacks and start building 72 hour kits with old clothes. For the activity, go shopping together to buy some food (granola bars, peanut butter, tuna fish pouches, crackers, fruit snacks, water bottles, etc) to put in the 72 hour kits.
* Read your Patriarchal Blessings together. Make an extra copy and mark it together. This is great because it helps you see your spouse for their potential and forget the small things that are annoying you right now.
*Make a movie of your lives. Show where you live, what a typical meal is like, talk to your future posterity about what your life is like.
Write letters to your parents/grandparents. Yes, we live in the day of cell phones and email when contact is so easy but there is something special about getting a handwritten letter. Thank them for the sacrifices they made for you.
7. Make it about service. Serving others or serving each other. Whether it is helping each other with a project or upcoming lesson or making cookies for a neighbor.
8. Family/couple meeting time! Talk about what you are doing this week- upcoming tests, girls nights, study groups, meetings, golf outings, etc. Discuss how you can help each other. Plan a time when you can do something together.
9. Scavenger Hunt Go on a scavenger hunt at home! (This idea was courtesy of LDS Living, see this idea and more, here)Each of you takes a paper sack and fills it with ten objects that represent the following:
Yourself
Your spouse
Dating experiences
Engagement
Wedding
Honeymoon
Married life
Your home
Greatest strength as a couple
Your future together
As soon as you have found everything, get back together to show and tell. This can end up being really funny and just a great way to reminisce about your relationship.
10. Bags of Blessings! Set a timer for three minutes and write down as many blessings as you can think of during that time. Write as quickly as you can and put down everything that comes to your mind. When the time is up, compare your lists. What blessings do you have in common? What blessings are different? Combine your lists and add some more blessings to create a master list of "100 Things We Are Grateful For." Post your list on the fridge and refer to it often during the week. For the next family night, you may want to discuss how thinking about your blessings and having the list posted affected your attitudes and behavior during the week.
11. Follow up any of these ideas with a frozen yogurt run or Jeni’s ice cream run (1 scoop dark chocolate, 1 scoop pistachios and honey, 1 scoop of backyard mint please!) You can also make a treat together or make a treat beforehand! These can be family night ideas on their own if you want! Just make sure you both know that it’s different than just a date night. It will help set a pattern of Family Home Evening in your lives.
These are just my ideas and what works for us may not work for you. But I am telling you it is probably the best marriage advice I can give, besides marrying an angel man like I did. I would love to hear your FHE ideas because I am always trying to think of other things we can do, so please comment or message me!
Xxxxooo
natalie
