The Family Home Evening idea I want to share with you today relates to the section of the proclamation that talks about the Plan of Salvation (or Plan of Happiness):

“In the premortal realm, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshiped God as their Eternal Father and accepted His plan by which His children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize his or her divine destiny as an heir of eternal life. The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally.”

You can teach even young children about the basics of the Plan of Happiness. Here’s what we did with our 5 year old:

We made a poster out of construction paper (we all worked together as a family to cut out and glue together pieces).

It included:

– a circle to represent premortal life
– a circle to represent the earth
– a circle to represent the spirit world (we did two sides- spirit prison & spirit paradise)
– 2 simple stick people (our white one represents the spirit and the orange one represents the body)
– a star (to represent the telestial kingdom)
– a moon (to represent the terrestrial kingdom)
– a sun (to represent the celestial kingdom)

We rolled masking tape on the back of each piece and stuck them on the poster board as we discussed each step in the plan (and our little spirit & body moved through each step- sometimes together, sometimes apart).

This is a good way to help anyone to understand the basics of the plan. It’s also a good way to review and an opportunity to stop and discuss in more detail about different parts of the plan.

If you’re focussing on teaching about family relationships lasting beyond the grave, you can take a moment at the “earth” stage and talk about how the choices we make during our life can affect whether we get to be with our families forever. You can get into more detail about marriage in the Temple and baptism, etc.

Of course the depth of these discussions can be tailored to the ages and understanding level of those in your family. For example, I was able to have a discussion with my 2 year old recently about getting married in the temple (it was very basic and I pulled out our wedding album to show her pictures of us at the temple).

Song Suggestions:
Families Can Be Together Forever
I Am A Child of God
I Lived In Heaven
I Love to See The Temple

I hope you find this idea useful- I can’t wait to see the ideas you all link up!