FHE Bible Heros

Since Mother's Day is approaching, I decided I'd start my Bible Heros Family Home Evenings with a woman from the Bible. This month, I've picked Ruth.

Advance Prep: Make sure to have all ingredients for the treat as well as for any activity you have planned.

Opening Prayer:

Scripture: And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; they people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me. Ruth 1:16-17
17.

Song: I Love Feel My Savior’s Love (Children’s Songbook pg. 74)

Poem/Thought:
I think of loyalty in terms of being true to ourselves. I think of it in terms of being absolutely loyal to the Church and its many facets of activity. I think of it in terms of being unequivocally true to the God of heaven, our Eternal Father, and His Beloved Son, our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ...Be loyal to the best that is in you.”
Gordon B. Hinckley, Ensign, May 2003, © 2006 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.

Lesson:
Ruth’s Reward
Elimelech lived with his wife, Naomi, and their two sons in Judea. Because of a famine, they moved to Moab, an idolatrous country. There Elimelech died and his two sons married Orpah and Ruth, young women of Moab. Before long, however, both sons also died.
Naomi had been away from Judea for ten years and yearned for her own land and people. She decided to go back home to live, and she asked her daughters-in-law to return to the homes of their mothers. In Moab they could find husbands among their own people.
Orpah and Ruth wept when Naomi kissed them goodbye. Orpah went back to her own family, but Ruth had been converted to the religion and God of Israel. She clung to Naomi and pleaded, “Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” (Ruth 1:16.)
Naomi and Ruth reached Naomi’s old home in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. Ruth, according to custom, gleaned the barley left by the reapers so she and Naomi might have food to eat. (What it means to reap and to glean? To reap means to cut and gather the crops. The Lord instructed the land owners to leave some of their crops for the poor. These are called the gleanings. The poor would then go to the fields and glen (gather) what was left in the fields.)
The field where Ruth was gleaning belonged to Boaz, a kinsman of Naomi’s husband. When Boaz came to the barley field, he noticed Ruth and asked the reapers who she was. They told him that she was the Moabite, Naomi’s daughter-in-law, and that she had worked diligently.
Boaz told Ruth to glean in no other fields but his. She would not be molested in any way, and she was to eat the food and drink the water provided for his reapers.
Ruth bowed herself before Boaz and asked why he was so kind to her, a stranger. Boaz answered her, “It hath fully been shewed me … how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore.
“The Lord recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.” (Ruth 2:11–12.)
The Lord did reward Ruth for her sacrifices; she later married Boaz, and they had a son, Obed. Through Obed, Ruth became the great-grandmother of David, king of Israel, and she was an ancestor of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Discussion/Q&A:
What gift did Ruth give to Naomi? The gift of loyalty.
What does it mean to be loyal? Being faithful and true.
How did Ruth show her loyalty to Naomi? Instead of returning to her own family, Ruth went to Bethlehem with Naomi. She cared and provided for her by gleaning in the fields.
What great blessings came from Ruth’s love and loyalty to Naomi?
Because of Ruth’s love and loyalty to Naomi she was able to meet and marry Boaz. Ruth and Boaz were blessed with a son, Obed and Obed’s son Jesse was the father of David, a great Israelite king..
What has the Lord asked us to do for the poor that compares to His instruction to the land owners in Ruth’s time? To give a generous fast offering.
What can our family do to loyally serve Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ?
Some of the things we can do to show our loyalty to the Lord are being obedient, respectful, following our Church leaders, fulfilling our stewardships, and keeping the commandments. We can also show our loyalty to the Lord by the way we treat others “...when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.” (Mosiah 2:17.)
“We show our loyalty to the Lord by being obedient to parents, being respectful of our brothers and sisters, following Church leaders, and fulfilling our church callings and priesthood responsibilities. Loyalty includes being obedient to the laws of the land and the commandments of God. Loyalty to employer and employee, demonstrated by an honest day’s work and an honest day’s pay, is part of our loyalty to the Lord, for what we do unto each other we do unto Him. It means standing up for that which is right when our associates would persuade us to do wrong. Rex D. Pinegar, New Era, July 1976 © 2006 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.
Activity: Categories http://lds.about.com/od/familyhomeeveninggames/a/fheg_categories.htm

Closing Prayer: (including blessing on the food)

Refreshments:
Banana Chocolate Chip CookiesIngredients:
1/3 c. butter, softened1/2 c sugar1 egg1/2 c mashed ripe bananas1/2 t. vanilla1 c. flour1 t baking powder1/4 t salt1/8 t baking soda1 c chocolate chips (I prefer Milk Chocolate Chips)In a small mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Beat in the egg, banana and vanilla. Combine flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda; gradually add to the wet mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. The dough is very stick so refrigerate for 1 hour. Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 9 - 11 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. DONT OVER BAKE!!

Easter Sunday is very special to our family. Because I want Easter Sunday to be the special sacred time, we do our celebrating the day before. My children get their Easter baskets on Saturday morning. I guess that means the Easter bunny comes Friday night. There have been times when I created a whole treasure hunt for them. I sent them all over the house to find their Easter treats. They have told me that was the best Easter. They loved looking for their baskets. On Sunday, we read about Christ and the sacrifice He made for our sakes.

Closed Doors and Open Windows

The company I work for is a telemarketing company. I take incoming phone calls for various companies. The last project I worked for ended on March 31st but I was able to work a few days into April. The OM (operations manager) called me earlier this week and said that because of decreased call volume, my services were no longer needed (or something along that line). When we said family prayer that night, my husband explained the issue to our Father in Heaven that we need the money right now and to provide a way for one of us (him or me) to get another job. The next day, I received a phone call from a recuiter for the same company. They have permanent part-time openings answering for another project. Training starts in May and goes until June. Training is full-time paid. When I go on the phones in June, it goes to part-time. This allows me to contribute to the family finances and still be available for my children when they come home from school. So what I thought was a closed door (the ability to help with the family finances) was actually an open window (this job provides more hours per week than the other one did).

Red Dress

I finally finished the dress I started making in January for my daughter for Valentine's Day. In my defense, I was offered a job so I was working instead of, well, working (on the dress). When I basted the dress together and tried it on the daughter I was making it for, it was already too small, so I finished it and gave it to the younger one. Its a little big now but she likes it and she'll grow into it. I know the dress has red hearts and polka dots and the buttons are flowers so they don't really match but she liked them and that's what matters.

Harry Potter Birthday

My soon-to-be 9 year old loves Harry Potter so she decided to have a Harry Potter birthday party with her friends this year. We started out with a trip to the store to buy some parchment paper for our invitations. We used a Hogwarts crest on top and addressed the invitations as follows (obviously, some things have been changed for safety concerns):

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE(Order of Merlin First Class Grand Sorc. Chf. WarlockSupreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear (child's name),
We are pleased to inform you that you have been invited to a celebration at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in honor of (my child's name) 9th birthday. You can wear wizard attire, or, if you prefer, dress in the Muggle manner. Magic Wands will be provided by Ollivanders.

The celebration will take place on March 12, 2011 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m at Platform 9 ¾ located at (my address was here). Snacks will be available.

We await your owl as soon as possible. If you are unable to reply by owl, you can RSVP to Rachel by Muggle phone at 801-999-9999.

Yours Sincerely,

(your name here)
Deputy Headmistress

I bought a frog mold off of E-Bay as well as some Bertie Botts Beans and some Bertie Bott Bags for the treat bags. My husband found some Hershey bars on sale and thought they would taste better and be less expensive than buying melting chocolate. It was only a dollar for a BIG bag so we made chocolate frogs and edible wants from that (edible wands are pretzel rods dipped in chocolate where the chocolate makes the wand handle).

I bought a gold balloon on the day of the party and wrote 9 3/4 on it so the parents would know where to drop off the children.

Inside, we had a trivia contest, made wands by decorating chopsticks with unicorn hair (yarn), dragon scales (sequins) and phoenix feathers (craft feathers). I had seperated the Bertie Botts Beans and had them taste them and guess the flavor. The winner guessed 4 out of 6 correct. That person won a small bag of Jelly Belly Beans, The person in second place recieved a gummy spider. I wasn't exactly expecting that to take as long as it did so I had to not do the Goopy Gooop or make brooms from pencils but the children didn't know what they were missing out on so it worked out okay.

For snacks we had Bugles (because they are in a cone shape like a hat) and Doritos (because they are in a triagle like a flat hat). I made cupcakes with a chocolate covered sugarcone on the top to look like wizard hats.

It was actually lots of fun and hopefully memorable. I did take a picture of the cupcakes but apparently, I didn't download it yet so I'll get one on here in the next couple days. Have a good one y'all.

Castle Mania

My son had to design a built a castle for school. He had a specific list of things it had to include. It could not be bigger than 24 x 24 inches, everything had to be labeled with a full paragraph (4-5 sentences), no spelling or grammer mistakes, shows hard work and creativity.

This is my son's castle. They had a show in the school for the students and parents. There were some very creative ones. One even had real pea gravel on it. The mother said it was a lot of washing and many jars of rubber cement that achieved the look.

My son received an "A" for this project. He deserved it. He worked hard on this.

Husband Found A New Job

My husband applied for a job on Friday. They called him before the end of day and offered him a job contingent on whether or not he passed the background check. They sent him the required paperwork which he filled out and returned as soon as possible. The company said they would let him know Monday if everything was all right. Although there is nothing in his background that would prevent him from being hired, he was still nervous. He waited all weekend. Finally, it was Monday. The company called him first thing and said they had a paperwork and just had to have someone pull the records. They asked him to call them in the afternoon. He called after 2 and there is no answer. He called after 3 and there was no answer. He called after 4 and no answer. He called home and asked me if I had heard anything. I told him no. He said he would try them again. Finally, he received the call that he had the job. He starts on Valentine's Day. He will be an underwriter for an insurance company. He is so excited!