DIY Party Mom: Come Follow Me Five Minute Family Home Evening Lesson- Temples and the Eternal Family of God

Teach your kids this five minute family home evening lesson on temples and eternal families as you study the Come Follow Me lesson on Joseph Smith history 1:27-65 and Doctrine and Covenants 2.

I enjoyed last weeks Come Follow Me lesson on prayer. It's nice to take a quiet moment to share some lessons with my teenagers. Those kind of moments don't come often, but they are important if we want to raise kids that will be able to handle the struggles of the last days and the crazy world we live in.

With My kids heading back to school and work this week, I chose to focus on how our Families can be forever and how that is important to God's eternal plan.

Attention Activity:

Hold up pictures of your family. Explain that Heavenly Father loves us so much he has allowed us to come to Earth and live with families.

Put all the pictures of the family in an envelope and close it (Don't lick or seal shut.)

But someday each of our loved family members will die. (Shake the envelope until the pictures fall out.)

Thankfully, we have the plan of Salvation that allows us to be sealed together as families and live together forever. (Put the pictures back into the envelope and lick shut.)

Thanks to the sealing power of the Priesthood inside temples, we can be sealed with our families forever. (Shake the envelope and show the pictures don't fall out.)

Photo by Freestocks

Lesson:

3 1/2 years after the first vision, Joseph knelt down to pray beside his bed. In this prayer, Joseph was worried about the mistakes he had made since he had seen God and Jesus Christ and was wondering how God felt about him.

The angel Moroni came to visit Joseph in answer.

Moroni told him of the gold plates and a work that God needed him to do. He needed him to bring for the book and the "^bfulness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants"

He quoted: "Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of ^aElijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and ^bdreadful day of the Lord.

2 And ^ahe shall plant in the hearts of the children the ^bpromises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers.

3 If it were not so, the whole ^aearth would be utterly wasted at his coming." (D&C 2:1-3)

This is how God continued the work of the restoration of His Gospel--with probably one of the most important principles of the plan of Salvation.

"Elijah would be sent not only to bless the living but also so that we the living can redeem our dead, and connect ourselves with our deceased fathers...and seal up our dead to come forth in the first resurrection." (Joseph Smith)

This is the "endgame" of the entire plan of Salvation--to "weld" together families in one eternal family in God's kingdom.

Could you be happy without your mom and dad? Could you be happy without your siblings? Do you think they could be happy without you? What about without their parents?

No.

"Love is as eternal as the spirit of man, and if man continues after death, which he does, so will love." (unknown)

Therefore without each other forever, the whole purpose of earth would be wasted. The whole purpose of the sealing power of the Priesthood would be frustrated.

The promises made by God to our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that they would have eternal and innumerable seed or posterity (Genesis 13:16), would be failed and God couldn't be God.

"One of the major missions of the Church is to uniquely identify these individuals who have died and perform the necessary saving ordinances in their behalf, for they cannot do it for themselves. Once these ordinances are performed, if the individual accepts the gospel in the great world of spirits, then this work will be effective.” (Royden G. Derrick)

But if the rules that apply for us to have the gift of eternal families apply to everyone, how do those who have never heard the Gospel join in this eternal family?

They must hear the gospel, be baptized, make eternal covenants, and live them too!

The plan of salvation must have a provision for them also.

Thus Elijah brought back the sealing power in temples and the power to baptize the dead.

“It is important to know why the Lord promised to send Elijah. Elijah was a great prophet with great power given him by God. He held the greatest power God gives to His children: he held the sealing power, the power to bind on earth and have it bound in heaven." (Henry B Eyring)

As Moroni quoted we must allow the promises made to our ancient fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob on one eternal family to be PLANTED in to our hearts. They need to be placed there with firmness and allowed to grow.

Then we must take that seed and turn our hearts to our ancestors who need the saving ordinances and joining families that only we can give them through temple attendance.

We must allow God to work through us, just as Joseph Smith did, to fulfill the promises and bring about the eternal nature of the Plan of Salvation not only for ourselves, but for those we love all the way back to Father Adam and Mother Eve.

Dessert:

Use this (ad link) Heart Chocolate Mold to make chocolate peanut butter cups in the shape of hearts. Give everyone hearts to remind them of family love.