Family Home Evening - Jesus Christ, Our Chosen Leader and Savior

Tonight our lesson came from HERE.

Here is what we did:

We asked the following questions for everyone to think about:
Question #1: Why did we need to leave Heavenly Father's presence?
Question #2: Why do we need a Savior?

Then my six year old daughter and I stood to lead this persuasive argument:

Mom: Okay, as you all know, Father has presented to us His plan.

Daughter: We have been assigned to come and ask for your votes.

Mom: Before you make your choice, we want you to hear both sides of what is being offered so that you can best decide what is right for you.

Daughter: As you know, two of our spirit brothers are willing to go to earth for us.

Mom: I believe both want what is best for us. Both have reasonably good offers. But I want you to think how you would feel if we never could see each other again. Think of all the time we have spent together. Think of all the good times we've already have had. I don't think I could bear it if one of us never comes back to Father. That is why I think Lucifer's plan will be the best for us. Think about it, we will go to earth together and then come back and live with Father again.

Daughter: Only one of our brothers is following Father's plan. Jesus is the only one who is giving you a choice. Following Father's true plan means you will choose Jesus over Lucifer.

Mom: But making choices on earth will only hurt you. Thank about it. What if you make a wrong choice? What if you make a choice that makes you sad or poor or ugly or fat? What happens if you make a choice that brings harm or evil to one of us? It will destroy us. We could never come back as a family. I know none of us would want that.

Daughter: But Jesus promises us that He will be our Savior. He will save us from all of our bad mistakes if we follow Him. He promises that if we make covenants with Father and keep His commandments, we can repent and return together as a family forever and ever.

Mom: Don’t you see how hard it's going to be? Those are all hypothetical ideas because we will make mistakes with Jesus. Lucifer is going to take Father's plan and make it easier for us to do the same thing. Lucifer will make sure that we will follow the commandments, that we will ALL make covenants, that we will do EVERYTHING that we should do. None of us will do anything different. None of us will stray from the path. NONE OF US! We will ALL come home. It's the easy way.

Daughter: But remember what Lucifer said? After everything is all done, he wants to take away all of Father's glory for himself. Father is the greatest, most wonderful being I have ever known. Everything He does is for our eternal happiness. Lucifer is trying to take over our family.

Mom: He is not trying to take over our family. If Lucifer does win, he will make sure that we will all come back, just as Father wants. And if he does that, wouldn't he deserve all of the glory anyway for working so hard for us?

Daughter: No! Jesus is Father's First Born Son. He will go to earth just like us. He will know all that we go through. He promises us that we can make choices and learn for ourselves - not be told what to do. He will sacrifice Himself to show us that He loves us and that we can repent and be forgiven. And in the end, Jesus will give Father ALL the glory. And He promises us that we can share all the blessings of eternal life with them.

Mom: Whatever. We don't have much time left. You need to decide which side you'll choose. Please promise me that we will always, always, always stay together.  Please choose the easy way!

Daughter: I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior. He is the way, the truth and the life. It is time to make your choice.

What ensued was amazing. Of course, to make things at least somewhat real (a third of the hosts of heaven rejected Father's plan), I enlisted the help of my husband and our twelve-year old twins to choose to go with me.

But everyone else clearly and easily moved over to the side their sister was on.

Except our youngest son.

To begin with, he found himself on his sister's side. But oh, how he LOVES his twin brothers. And oh how his twin brothers love him.

And they began coaxing him to come over.

Come over to our side.

And that is when the "battle" ensued!

Noise. Commotion. A whole lot of yelling.

Sister's team grabbed hold of him, not wanting to let him go. And the twins, well, they are all about agency!!

"Hey!" they yelled. "You can't hold him back. You can't take away his agency. If he wants to come with us, he can."

So sister's team let him go. And he came to our side just beaming.

And after, when we "revealed" what sides were and how many of our spirit sibs chose to follow Lucifer, our youngest little boy fell down and sobbed.  He sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

He didn't want to choose the wrong side. But he did. Because he loves his brothers.

Which gave me a whole lot to think about.

About my choices before I came to earth  - and my choices now.

About who I influenced in the Spirit World.

And whom I'm influencing now.

Am I using my agency to get back to Him and helping others to so the same?

It was a great family home evening!

Forgot to post last week's FHE.  But It came from HERE. And we all ended up drawing pictures of families in clouds.