This simple Family Home Evening teaches how to bring joy during times when sadness prevails. Time for some FHE Fun!

Opening Song:  #290 Rejoice, Ye Saints of Latter Days

Opening Prayer:  By invitation.

Emergency Preparedness Tip:  Do your ward and stake have an emergency preparedness plan? What would your stake do if all communication were down? Meridian Magazine's Carolyn and Don Nicolaysen (both ham radio operators) provide some excellent information to help you serve in a most urgent and important way! http://www.meridianmagazine.com/emergency/090826stake.html

Devotional: Devotionals are a great time for individuals in the family to share an "aha" moment from the past week, based on a scripture they read out loud to start off the spiritual portion of each FHE. It can be a beautiful time as family members become accustomed to sharing deep feelings with each other. Over time this brief moment can become more and more spontaneous.

Activity:  Explain to your family that for tonight's FHE, you're going to take a tour of the Church's music website. Once you've visited the site and explored it to see all it offers, then ask each person what their favorite hymn is. Using the search feature in the upper right corner at that site, pull up each individual hymn and print it out.

Application:  Distribute the printed favorite hymns to the specific individuals who selected them. Invite them to spend five minutes exploring how many verses they can memorize. Then have a face-off: see who can recite (NOT sing) the lyrics of their personally selected hymn. If they need to peek at their printed-out sheet, that is fine!

Once everyone has had a chance to recite at least the first verse of "their" hymn (again, peeking at the sheet is allowed), let them know that reciting the poetry behind the hymns is an excellent way to elevate their spirits when feeling sad. It doesn't matter the setting; if we're scared, nervous, sad, angry--we can recite our favorite hymn silently in our mind. Peace will come when we do it consistently enough.

Invite your family to spend time memorizing the rest of the words to their favorite hymn over the next week. See if any can recite the full text of all the verses at next week's FHE! Have them notice the Spirit that comes to them throughout the week as they make the effort to memorize the lyrics of a hymn as if they were poetry.

Encourage each person to tape their hymn's words to a bathroom mirror or anywhere that he or she frequents in the home as a support to this week's family project.

Finish off by sharing your testimony and then reading the following scripture:

"Praise the Lord; for the Lord is good: sing praises unto his name; for it is pleasant" (Psalms 135:3)

Closing Song:  #66 Rejoice, the Lord Is King!

Closing Prayer:  By invitation.

Refreshments:  This Easy Baklava will be sure to become a family favorite dessert. Not only can you make it in advance, but its multiple layers of "paper" will be reminiscent of individual sheets of hymns that uplift the soul!