Carry on.

One thing that we’re encouraged to do as members of the Church is to set aside one night per week where we will spend an entire evening with the family. We made so many excuses, and there were so many reasons not to follow the Prophet’s advice to hold Family home evening. With Oak-jin and Joohee joining our family for a short period of time, however, we had the extra incentive to do it. I realized that for the first four and a half years of marriage, I had been missing out on the joys of holding consistent, weekly family home evening.

What got us to do it? Well, one of my best friends, Jung yong Tae asked me to take care of his niece, Joohee while she studied English here in Vancouver. We, in fact became her family while she was here. Bro Jung has done so much for our family, more than he would ever realize, that I decided that I would do all that I could to help him. The best way to do it was to show his niece what good an active family of the Church can do in people’s lives.

So we’re trying to do our best to hold Family home evening. One thing thing I noticed was that my wife has so many good ideas to make it interesting. Sometimes, it may seem a little bit weird or ridiculous, but hey… this is your family and you’re in the walls of your own home. So when your wife asks you to act out a character in the scriptures so that the rest of the family can guess… don’t worry about looking foolish. No one is going to know, except your family (and those that read this blog!)

It all started off kinda funny… Joohee acting like Moses, Oakjin acting out the pictures in the Book of Mormon… me being struck down to the ground after a long day of Persecuting the Saints (Alma the younger).. I even acted like I was galloping on a horse… hee hee fun times. We all had fun, in spite of making fools of ourselves

Then the defining moment of the evening. Nicolas started making a fist and hitting it on his left hand, making banging noises with his mouth. Then he did the same for his right hand. Then he stretched his arms out wide. I couldn’t figure out what he was doing. Pretty soon, my wife said in a firm voice, “I Know who you are, you’re Jesus Christ.” And Nico said, “You’re right!”. Then he said, after that happenned he died. then later he went up again and he was happy!

This may not mean so much to some people, but it sure means a lot to me. To see my son show what he knew about the most basic, most fundamental belief of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – that the Savior Died and rose again – had a profound imact on how important the little opportunities for teaching are. I’m not sure if he will rememeber this night, but I sure will. I hope, I truly hope we can keep this going. I hope that we can keep doing family home evening and see our son develop and progress to the wonderful person he can be – complete with a testimony of the Savior.

I downloaded Landslide from Itunes the other day. It’s one of my favorite songs at the moment. It asks: Can the child in my heart rise above? Can I sail through changes ocean tides, can I handle the seasons of my life? With little things like Prayer… Family home evening and time… I think we can.

I am truly greatful for my wife who has been so patient with me, especially in things of a spiritual nature. I am not the most spiritual guy in the world. Although it took an outside influence to turn on the Family Home evening light on, I hope that my motives will improve.