December was a hard month for me. I felt like I was just doing enough to get by and I hated it. I was trying to keep everything together and make great memories and not let any balls drop but I was drowning and not really doing anything to the extent I wanted to because I just had enough time to get the bare minimum done before I had to move on to the next thing. So I have decided I’m going into 2022 MUCH more organized and on top of things.
First step is the most important to me…Come Follow Me prep. I have the entire month of January planned and prepped and ready to go. What we’ll do each day, what our FHE will be for that month and what are discussions will be. Of course, there is always room for things changing when it comes to some stuff, if the kids have questions that take our discussion in a different direction, we’ll go there instead, but having a plan as to what to do each day is going to help DRASTICALLY with feeling like I can get this done each day and to the level I want to. It’s not over the top, it doesn’t take a lot of extra stuff, but it will mean we can have meaningful scripture study each day (with the exception of Saturdays) as a family and that’s all I want. I really only use the Come Follow Me manuals (both the Individual and Family one and the primary one) and made sure each child had a journal to use during our study time which we will use most weeks but not daily. Later in the post I will discuss some of the extra items I use to prepare but they certainly aren’t used every week and they are not mandatory by any means for doing the lessons, they are mostly just additional material for us to read with kids or discuss with our teens in between CFM lessons.
Week 1:
For the one activity discussed in there we chose to make pancakes. The pancake mix was PRAYER, the whisk was READ AND STUDY THE SCRIPTURES, the rubber spatula was ATTEND CHURCH SERVICES, the bowl was APPLY THE ATONEMENT, the measuring cup used for dry ingredients was LISTEN TO GOOD MUSIC, the water (which I had pre-measured out in a glass measuring cup) was BE MINDFUL/INTENTIONAL, the griddle was GO FOR A WALK, the butter was DO AN ACT OF SERVICE, the syrup was SPEND TIME WITH YOUR FAMILY, and a container of blueberries was CHOOSE GOOD FRIENDS. While we made the pancakes we discussed why we needed each of these items to make pancakes and why what it represented could be used to help us stay on track with fulfilling our purpose or could be used to help us resist temptation. You of course can choose any activity that works best for your family that involves using multiple tools to get it done.
I found this book that has little descriptions/summaries of each week’s lessons and coloring pages for the kids and I bought 2 so each of the youngest who can’t read as well can color in their books while we do our lessons if needed. I bought ours at Costco but I’m assuming you can find them at Desert Book or online.
I also found at Costco a book about the women in the Old Testament which we are SO excited to look through on Sundays, especially with our teen girls, and some beginner bibles for kids that we can read to the youngest in our family.
Week 2:
Week 3:
Week 4:
Week 5:
I will post these as I finish them or perhaps at the end of each month for the following month. I hope someone out there finds them helpful in their CFM prep. We don’t have to have over the top lessons each day or even week but finding time to do CFM as meaningful as you can will pay off in blessings. Maybe your family will do all of it on Sundays or just choose bits and pieces to do, maybe you enjoy spreading it out amongst the week as we do, maybe you do it in the early morning or right before bed, none of that matters, what matters is that you put forth your best effort and have faith that God and our Savior will make up the rest. YOU’VE GOT THIS!!!
xo,
Jenny
Homestead Creations 