Over the weeks we have served here in Ghana, Sister Dalton and I have brought a Family Home Evening to all of the Branch Presidents and their families, the District Presidencies families, single mothers with their children and to a group of young single adults. Each week we have taught about helping hands for the little ones where we have traced their precious hands and cut them out, and colored them together and hung them in their homes. The lesson was geared to children with parent’s participating as we instruct. Sister Dalton and I have sung songs with the family and even closed each visit with a duet from us singing “Love At Home” or “Families can be Together Forever”; and always treats were brought by Sister Dalton. Those Family Home Evenings with older youth and adults we have shared a wonderful lesson about “blossoming where we are planted”. It has drawn us closer to each and every family or person we have shared with over the weeks. These are special times and even at time scared tender moments with a family or person. We have discussed what are some of their greatest blessings received as a family or single person. To our pleasant surprise we have not heard of a discouraging word from anyone. We have been buoyed up with their unique stories of courtship or church experiences. We have always felt especially blessed to be in their home and in their presences for those 90 minutes or so. We have learned the ways of God with pure faith in Him whom we serve. I testify of the Family Home Evening program that was instituted for our good and the impact it will have on the structure and formation of doctrine and principles. Father wants us to continually nourish our souls with the good word and feelings of God. Each week we plan and look forward to our Monday night visits to someone’s home, with great anticipation. There is something to be said about those bonding moments that only come with sharing a gospel message by the Spirit.
Sister Dalton and I have reminisced each week, as we have left those choice evenings, and traveled back to our home, about our own Family Home Evenings over our 39 years of marriage. I must admit we could have been better at our preparations and planning for sometimes our lessons were a wrestling match with the little ones. I know that at times we threw up our hands as parents and only had a Family Home Minute, but we now, after all of these years later, remember those tender moments of togetherness in our home. Children grow and one day will move on their own, your Family Home Evening can then be a tender sharing time, with your sweet spouse, filled with simple memories of those times we had invited the Spirit to our home on so many Monday nights. Those memories are so very vivid to Sister Dalton and me today, that we still feel those feelings of that very night when our preparation and planning did all come together and the Spirit smiled upon our home on a Monday night. We have wonderful children who feel and love the Lord with all of their hearts partly due to their Family Home Evenings that sometimes were only Family Home Minutes.
Our experiences here have strengthened our commitment to the Family Home Evening doctrine and principles. We are in an area where much of the family’s time is being together. The source of all food is from your labor in the family farm- as a family. Little ones are bundled to mothers back and the whole family works at the farm. Father and sons use large machetes to clear the bush and keep the jungle from taking over the patch of ground chosen to plant. Mother and daughters gently plant seedlings, raised next to their home, in carefully hand dug holes in straight rows. They pat the earth back with their hands and I’m sure a prayer is offered with each planting. Sometimes the Mother with baby on her back wields a machete alongside father who directs the efforts. They set together for minutes and speak of their blessings come from All Mighty God and thank him for his goodness to their family. This was the wonderful experience we had this past week.
Our Monday was filled with harvesting corn on the Asiedu farm. These are pioneers in the Abomosu district and have served well over the years. Gladys and Alexander have raised 6 children to the Lord and have sent 2 sons on missions. Four of the children were there that day as we harvested together, side by side with machetes in hand and planting for the next harvest. Corn stocks were piled and freshly cut corn carried, on their head in big pans by Gladys and her daughters to the road for pick up and transport to the family home for drying. All worked in the hot sun without complaint or grumblings. I particularly remember at the completion of the harvest (maybe an acre or so), father called all of his family to a corner of the field and we knelt to thank Father in Heaven for their bounteous harvest and to humbly ask for His continued favors with their new plantings. This was a powerful example of the doctrine of faith with the application of the principle taught, as we knelt in that bush field together as a family. I rose from that prayer and had tears in my eyes as did mother and most of the family members. I soon learned that this portion of their plot was especially precious to the family for they would sometimes have Family Home Evenings there and each year, as a family, at harvest time, they would always kneel and father would offer a prayer of thanks and humbly ask for favors over their farm. I felt I stood on hallowed ground as we talked for a few minutes. It was scared to witness this humble family who had united all things with their faith and prayers. As Sister Dalton and I walked home, we spoke of our experience and the blessing it was to share tender moments with such a dear family, only a short time ago we did not know they had come to earth. Father had gently swallowed us up in his arms with his kindness for those precious moments alongside our brothers and sisters in the bush of Africa. We pray in your tender moments of reflection, you may be strengthened by simple acts of kindness, un-wavering faith and continued thanking God for all of your blessings.
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