Family Home Evening Funnies

Last Monday we had our regularly scheduled Family Home Evening (hereafter mentioned as FHE). Walt was in charge of the lesson, and Ethan was in charge of sharing a scripture. Ethan is learning to use the index and asked Walt what the lesson was about. Walt replied that it was on obedience. I knew full well why Walt chose this as the topic of our lesson. The last few weeks have been fraught with bickering and talking back. Sometimes FHE is a great place to address our concerns as parents. So Ethan looked up "obedience" in the index, and he chose the first scripture that it sited. 1 Nephi 4:18 "Therefore I did obey the voice of the Spirit, and took Laban by the hair of the head, and I smote off his head with his own sword." Walt and I could not contain ourselves! It was so funny. It was completely the opposite message we were trying to send. There is already too much violence in this house, and that was part of Walt's lesson on obeying. The kids demanded to know what was so funny, but we had no way of explaining it to them. So we forged on, and Walt gave a nice lesson on obedience. We finished and the kids rushed off to the dining room to have the treat Cameron chose, when Walt began counting. "3,2,1" and sure enough "HEY!!! That's my spot!" yelled one of the kids. Apparently, the part of the lesson about treating each other kindly, and speaking gently didn't last. Walt was right. It only lasted a few joyous, quiet seconds. Tomorrow, we will see if FHE will as much of an adventure, but it will be hard to top in humor, I'm guessing.