ABCs

For the month of January we have focused our family home evenings on the First Presidency message from the Ensign January 2012 issue "Living the Abundant Life". President Monson talks about the ABCs of having an abundant life. Attitude, Believe, and Courage. Each week we have focused on a different letter. This week we were on the letter C. We talked about what Pres. Monson had to say about courage. One of my favorite quotes from the talk:



Then we asked the kids to give other scriptural examples of courage and then discussed the story of Captain Moroni and the title of Liberty.

In a nutshell Moroni was an ancient Nephite Military Commander who was concerned for the freedom of his people when a wicked man named Amalickiah tried to become King. Moroni raised a "Title of Liberty" made out of his coat and went through the land rallying the people to defend themselves. They were able to put down Amalickiah's attempts and Moroni had a title of Liberty raised on every tower in the land.

In our Family Home Evening, when we came to the following part in the story we read parts of the verse and then did what is bolded in the parenthesis:

Alma 46:12 "And it came to pass that he rent his coat;"
(we tore up one of Dad's old shirts)

"and he took a piece thereof, and wrote upon it—In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children"
(we had the kids take turns writing our goals for the year: following the prophet's counsel to have a good attitude, believe, have courage, and one that we wanted to focus on, serving others)

"—and he fastened it upon the end of a pole."
(we tied the shirt to a miniature baseball bat)

Then Moroni prayed and in verse 19 it says:

Alma 46:19 "And when Moroni had said these words, he went forth among the people, waving the rent part of his garment in the air, that all might see the writing which he had written upon the rent part,"
(the kids took turns marching around the family room as we called out what was written on our family title of Liberty)

Alma 46:36 "And it came to pass also, that he caused the title of liberty to be hoisted upon every tower which was in all the land, which was possessed by the Nephites; and thus Moroni planted the standard of liberty among the Nephites."

Now we just have to decide where we are going to place our Title of Liberty, probably in the game room.


We ended with taking about personal experiences of when having a good attitude, believing in ourselves or having courage has helped us. The spirit was very strong and we ended with the most important part of any gospel teaching which is to bear your testimony of the truthfulness of the principle. I know we will be blessed with an abundant life if we follow the prophet's counsel. I have already seen a huge difference in our home this month as we have strived to have better attitudes and I'm definitely going to need a lot of courage in the upcoming months having a newborn and trying to regain my strength after being on bedrest.

The kids loved making the title of Liberty, it will be a helpful reminder of the goals we have made to follow the prophet's counsel this year.

And here are some variations of the ABC sign...just because I can never decide what I like better. I won't be having the luxury of all this fun creating signs once baby gets here:)