Fisher Crew

This is what I made with the eggplant. Paige said it was awesome and had three servings. Rylee declared she "kinda liked it" and the boys were told they wouldn't get the Family Home Evening treat if they didn't eat all of their minuscule portions. I also learned last night that David had never eaten eggplant before either!

After dinner, I asked Rylee to go up stairs to grab her scriptures for Family Home Evening (FHE) and while she was up there to open the dryer to get it to stop. Well, she didn't come back down. Me, in all my pessimism, made a bet with the others still at the table that she was up watching TV. While clearing the table, David went up to check on her. He came back down and wrote on a piece of paper,

"I'm breaking my word, but she is upstairs folding the laundry!"

Oh how I felt like such a schmuck! She tries so hard and I don't always (OK, to be honest, hardly ever) see it. She folded everyones laundry and put it away for them. I came up, acted surprised and gave her the biggest hug and told her how much I loved her. As I was getting into bed last night, I found lying on it a slip of paper with a note written in Rylee's hand saying:

"SAJS"

We had a FHE lesson a couple of months ago talking about service and how we need to live and do service like Christ did. At the end of the lesson, I handed the kids each an envelope with slips of paper that said "SAJS", serve as Jesus served. The next couple of weeks I found them around the house when the table was set without me knowing, toothpaste was put on everyones toothbrushes, the dishwasher was loaded, etc. It has widdled down a bit since the initial excitement of the lesson, but I am now reminded that our children take our lessons with them and will remember them.

During General Conference two weekends ago, Elder Bednar gave a wonderful talk about families. While his family was young, he and his wife were always trying to do what was best for them but were frequently met with, "Mom, he's looking at me", or "He's breathing my air." I could relate and often find myself feeling beatened and weary of the seemingly unimpactful practices in our home of Prayer, Scripture Study and FHE. We do them anyway because we are commanded to. I do see bits and pieces of my children coming around. It has taken years of persistence and, well, I won't lie, but bribing has been involved. We need to do what we are told to do in order to keep our families together and strong. I am willing to do that. We are taught that if we teach our children while they are young, when they are older they will not depart from it. That is my dearest wish.